


castle of light

by demonglass



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Based on a Taylor Swift Song, Drinking, Friends With Benefits, Intimacy, Kissing, M/M, Miscommunication, Non-Explicit Sex, and then they fall in love who is surprised, donghyuck gets some much needed TLC, elements of modern royalty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:14:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25811899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demonglass/pseuds/demonglass
Summary: On the heels of a nasty breakup, something leads Donghyuck into Jaemin's arms.Something makes him want to stay.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Na Jaemin
Comments: 45
Kudos: 184





	castle of light

**Author's Note:**

> hello this was an impulse fic that was supposed to be not even 10k [she laughs to cover up the fact that she's crying] but it spiraled a little out of control and became This.... but now it's done! so i hope u like it! 
> 
> thank you desy and yoon and kelly for lending me your ears and humoring me while i tried to figure out what the hell was going on with this! it helped me a lot and i really appreciate it <33
> 
> swifties pls note that this was titled "call it what you want" in my drafts before posting

Donghyuck should have known it would end like this.

In hindsight, maybe he did know, but he'd buried it deep under drawn out sighs, under sips of wine and twisted sheets, buried it like cursed treasure he never wanted to dig up and find again. But here he is now, empty-handed and alone in the ugly parking lot light, nothing around but the cloudy wisps of his breath as it shakes out of him and curls in the air before his lips, and he finds himself scuffing his shoes against the pavement like it's sand and dirt and he can kick it all up to reveal what's hidden under his feet.

It's midnight and it's dead silent this far from the powder dusted road, and the sky is thick with dark clouds, spilling snow like ash all over him. It catches in his hair, on the sleeves of his coat, on the red tip of his nose, all this evidence right before his eyes of what could have been beautiful - what  _ was  _ beautiful - before it withered and grayed and died. The delicate flake on his nose melts and disappears, all that intricate art destroyed in the blink of an eye.

Donghyuck lets out another breath and pushes himself off the light post he's been leaning against, waiting under as if the light were the sun and not just frozen electricity, as if it could bring warmth back to him, lead love back into his arms. He steps through the cloud of his breath and closes his eyes, and in the darkness, he feels himself shake, feels the dull ache in his chest split open and pour weeks worth of bottled pain through his veins, spreading like poison. It's no longer the slow slip into agony that he's been drawing out for ages now, but a flood that catches him in an instant, a wave breaking startling white and crashing over him, dragging him under to drown.

He opens his eyes again, swallowing hard. He won't let himself cry. Not here, not in the cold, not in the place he's been left behind. Not at the scene of the crime. No, he'll wait, wait until he can't bear it anymore and he's forgotten how to breathe through the pain cinching like a noose around his throat, clogging his lungs like funeral flowers.

Donghyuck doesn't cry. He puts one foot in front of the other and tracks prints through the fine frost glittering like broken glass on the pavement. He leaves the empty lot and doesn't spare it another glance as he puts distance and distance and  _ distance  _ between it and himself. He'll never go there again, never walk this street again.

It's over. It's died a hundred times before this and he's breathed life back into it desperately, clinging to the sinking ship like a madman, like a desperate fool, but this time it's final. This time the dark waters have swallowed everything whole and there's nothing to bring back to the surface, nothing but the endless sea of night stretching out ahead of him. This is a goodbye without words. This is the bend that finally breaks. Wind whistles past Donghyuck and he knows in his bones that it's gone for good.

He’ll never know love like this again, just the earth-shattering heartbreak that comes with its end.

Donghyuck should have known he would end up here.

There's no way he can go home, no way he can set foot on the hardwood that holds the echoes of two pairs of footsteps, no way he can look at the walls that have held laughter and whispers, hushed confessions and broken promises. There's no way he can fall into a bed that has blankets woven together with a dream that's fallen apart at the seams right in his hands like a thousand grains of sand scattering in the wind, like water slipping out of his grasp no matter how tightly he tries to clutch it.

So his feet carry him down a different road, towards bright lights glowing in the dark even at this hour, towards the sounds of vivid and unapologetic life blazing bright as a dozen suns, uncaring of the night that's swallowing everything in its maw. Donghyuck walks to his old dive bar, supposes he'll start singing here again now, start dizzying himself in one of the booths as spirits dull his senses and wipe his memory so this hopeless ache will leave him, even if only for a few hours at a time.

The door creaks as he pushes it open, but he can barely hear it over the sound of the lively conversation filling the place. The door hisses and clicks shut behind him and again, the noise is lost in the roar of life in front of him, all around him now. He walks to the bar and orders something strong, clear liquor he can down all at once and chase with a slice of orange, then do it all over again.

Two shots down, a third drink in hand, he ventures further into the room, finds an empty half-booth and collapses. He takes a sip of the dark liquid and it burns all the way down, sucks in a breath and sips a second time. He expects the jukebox to be blasting tinny music through the place, expects a dark and gritty undertone to everything, but that’s not what he finds at all. Against all odds, in a corner across the floor, there's a man at the piano, fingers dancing across the keys and playing a bright tune that has a small group of people crowding near him, swaying clumsily on unsteady feet. They're all smiling, out of their minds with something Donghyuck envies with a sharp lick of fire.

It's crowded for the hour, but this place always has been, has always carried on well into the night when doors shutter all around. It's like a gathering of familiar souls. Donghyuck hasn't been here in too long. He doesn't recognize regulars anymore, doesn't recognize the pianist or the bartender that served him his drinks with a tight look on his face, like he was trying not to speak, doing his best to mind his own business.

Part of Donghyuck wants to get up and dance too, but he's not sure his body remembers that kind of rhythm, isn't sure whether he can draw that kind of carelessness back into himself. It's been months of sneaking, hiding, tripping over his own feet in his haste to get away from danger and jumping at the sight of his own shadow. He's not sure he remembers how to be free, how to throw his arms out without a care and just  _ feel  _ something so openly without caution, without fear.

He takes a long sip of his drink, and the bitterness settles well with what's already swimming in his gut, black and rotting him up on the inside because he should have known, should have prepared himself for this ending, but he'd tried to hope until the end, and it had gotten him this. He'd stolen one too many times (a  _ thousand  _ times too many) and this is the punishment- him thrown into a jail of his own making, the cell bars fashioned by his own hands in the shape of arms he'd been foolish to think could hold him forever.

But this isn't what he'd wanted to get out of coming here. This isn't better than the frozen ground in an empty parking lot, an ashen sky and howling wind. This is still the sharpness of all his emotion cutting through him, this is still all his thoughts too clear and too loud to ignore.

He downs the rest of his drink in one go and coughs up half a lung, but pushes away from the booth, leaving it behind, casting it away.  _ So that's how easy it is. _

Donghyuck walks back to the bar and picks a chair near the other bartender so he doesn't have to see that same look on the first one's face. This one seems younger, brighter, seems like he'll give Donghyuck what he wants and not worry about what it is that he might  _ need  _ instead.

Donghyuck slumps over the counter, pushing his glass in the man's direction. He waves to catch his attention, calls out. The man twists to face him, looking up from the garnishes under his knife. In the red-orange light, his eyes spin to gold and Donghyuck can see the highest points of his face lit up like they're shining. Maybe the drinks are finally doing what they're supposed to.

"Can I get something for you?"

The man's voice is low, as soft as his features and the brown hair sweeping over his forehead. Donghyuck nods. "Yeah, I think so."

This time Donghyuck isn't caught off guard, isn't blindsided, but shot through with a hot sense of satisfaction that dulls everything else inside of him. Somehow, he  _ had  _ known he would end up here. Two sentences exchanged and he could feel it in the air. He'd been right. He's been wrong about so many fucking things before, but this one he knew the second Jaemin said his name without a beat of hesitation after Donghyuck asked.

Jaemin's shift ends at one in the morning, and until then he feeds Donghyuck a whole orange worth of garnish slices and then some, three glasses of water that earn him a glare and a laugh as he watches Donghyuck leave twice for the bathroom. The clock hits one and Jaemin finishes wiping down the counter, tosses the bar rag down to Doyoung's end (Donghyuck knows his name now from too much talking, from endless sloppy conversation with Jaemin, but he'll forget come morning, he's sure).

Five minutes past, and Jaemin's clocked out, wrapped in a jacket, and he's got a bag over one shoulder as he steps around the bar. He looks at Donghyuck peeling away from the counter, and grabs a fistful of his coat. Jaemin tugs and Donghyuck follows, and the world spins as Jaemin leads him out into the night, but it has nothing to do with the liquor.

Jaemin kisses him once in the orange light, twice in the cold. They stumble down pot-holed lanes and it takes too long to reach Jaemin's apartment because Donghyuck keeps yanking him back and trying to get a grip on his shoulders, steal the breath right out of his lungs. Jaemin indulges him, slipping him hot kisses like glasses filled to the brim across a gleaming bartop, and it makes him dizzier than any drink.

The wind is still cold and biting, but Donghyuck doesn't feel it when they finally reach a half-lit building and Jaemin leads him up three flights of stairs and lets him into a cozy studio. Jaemin reaches blindly for a light switch and then Donghyuck grabs the lapels of his coat, tugging until Jaemin pushes him against a wall and presses their bodies together before they've even shed their jackets. Jaemin kisses open-mouthed and hungry, and Donghyuck clings to him.

And Jaemin knows, knows exactly what this is and exactly why Donghyuck is opening his arms and letting his hands find tangled purchase in Jaemin's hair. Jaemin knows because Donghyuck had figured he was already split open, so why not spill everything out on that shining bartop for Jaemin to wipe away. He hadn't told him everything, of course, just enough to set the scene and paint a picture, but that's all he needed to say. 

Donghyuck had been right, because Jaemin didn't press his lips together and give him nothing but a drink and the feeling of barely bitten-back words. Donghyuck had been right, because Jaemin listens to him when he admits in between gasps that he doesn't care what he needs, doesn't  _ know  _ what he needs, listens when Donghyuck asks him to just give him what he wants.

Donghyuck had been right when he told himself he wouldn't shed any tears alone in the dark. He waits until the moment he can't breathe at all and then lets the first cry burst out of him like he's been shot, been stabbed in the back with a blazing hot knife. He cries, and Jaemin freezes like Donghyuck’s poured a bucket of ice water all over him, but Donghyuck shakes his head frantically, says between gasps,  _ it’s not you; please don’t stop _ . 

Jaemin doesn’t quite believe him; he pulls back and looks at Donghyuck with wide eyes as tears well up and pour down his cheeks and he shakes like a feather caught in a storm. 

“ _ Please _ ,” Donghyuck begs, reaching up to clutch one of Jaemin’s arms so tightly it might bruise come morning light.  _ Don’t just leave me like this. _

It seems to do the trick. Jaemin leans over him again and kisses his cheek, too gentle for what they’re doing, and then kisses his lips just long enough for Donghyuck to taste salt before Jaemin’s gripping his hips again and carrying on. 

Everything burns and Donghyuck can’t stem the tide rising within him, spilling out to mar his cheeks and blur his vision, but it doesn’t matter, because Jaemin isn't who he wants to see here anyway. Jaemin isn’t who he wants to see, but his face doesn't shift in the half-light, and he doesn't become the ghost that Donghyuck already misses with every inch of his being. He's still the bartender Donghyuck almost thinks he might recognize from back when he used to sing nights where that young pianist had sat earlier. He's still Jaemin, with too-warm eyes and curved lips and a tiny red stone glinting in one of his pierced ears. 

Donghyuck squeezes his eyes shut when he isn't sure he can bear the sight.

Even if Donghyuck can't look Jaemin in the face, though, he can feel the warmth of his body and the press of his lips down Donghyuck's neck, feel his hands against Donghyuck's skin as he traces every unfamiliar line. Eventually the heat grows to be so much that Donghyuck forgets all about the biting chill of the winter night, finds his throat scraped and burning not from held back cries, unanswered pleas for someone to stay and try again, but from all those cries tearing clean out of him.

Eventually Donghyuck manages to forget why he's in the arms of a stranger, in a bed that's not his own, different skin and different lips than he's grown used to running all over him. A distant part of him knows that he'll remember when he comes down from the high, when Jaemin crashes beside him and the silence settles over them, but for as long as the bliss of ignorance runs through Donghyuck's veins, he lets it. He savors it.

For just a little while, he can let himself break down without being broken.

Donghyuck finds himself both right and wrong at once. After the crash, he does remember, he  _ does  _ feel everything awaken in him once more and writhe like a desperate, dying animal. But silence doesn't catch him in its claws.

Jaemin lies beside him, their arms flush together, and as he catches his breath, he lets little things slip past his lips, little confessions of his own, as if he wants to make up for all Donghyuck has told him and balance the scales.

A part of Donghyuck doesn't want to know, doesn't want to think about the fact that Jaemin is a stranger who's taken him home and pressed him into sheets and seen tears track down his cheeks as red as his kiss-bitten lips. A part of Donghyuck doesn't want to know, but the silence would be worse, the empty air would be worse. At least this way he knows he's not alone, doesn't have room to think and think and think until his head aches all over again.

So he learns that Jaemin is working two jobs to pay off the debt of his education as quickly as possible, that he’s been working the dive bar ever since he came of age to do so, that he recognizes the look in Donghyuck's eyes from other nights at the bar ( _ no, they'd never ended like this before- sure, I guess that makes you special)  _ and from his own life, from friends he'd known in school and strangers he's never seen again.

When Jaemin crawls off the bed to clean the mess they've made, Donghyuck pushes himself onto his elbows only to find a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"Unless you want a shower that badly at two in the morning, you don't have to get up," Jaemin tells him.

Donghyuck stares at him, backlight by the light they'd left on when they first stumbled into the apartment. He can just barely make out Jaemin's features, has to strain to make out the shape of his eyes as they soften. Donghyuck doesn't move, so Jaemin lifts his hand away and steps back, disappears from sight as he walks into the bathroom and another burst of light floods the open floor.

There's the sound of water running, and Donghyuck looks away. He falls flat on his back again and stares up at the ceiling. His body aches, pain and satisfaction twisted together like vines growing up the side of a building, flowers and thorns blooming over sun baked brick. His face is still wet and his lips taste of salt when he runs his tongue over the sensitive bruises Jaemin left him with.

When Donghyuck blinks, one last stray tear slips from his right eye and tracks down his cheek. He feels satiated and starved all at once, heat still trapped in his body, but cold crawling over him, ready to seep through his skin and sink into him. The buzz of alcohol is still slipping through his system, but it's not as strong as he'd like. Jaemin had insisted he be clear-headed, as close to sober as he could get him before they left the bar together.

He'd given Donghyuck what he wanted on condition, on his own terms, and who was Donghyuck to turn that down? He's all too used to bending this way and that to make things possible, and this hadn't even come close to breaking him, had been a small ask in the grand scheme of things. He just wishes he could down another drink now, just enough to send him off to the only kind of uneasy sleep he'll be able to get on a night like this.

The water in the bathroom cuts off.

Donghyuck tears his eyes away from the expanse of the ceiling and lets his head fall to the side to take in the sight of Jaemin returning. He’s in his shorts now, a washcloth folded in his hands. Donghyuck reaches out to take it from him once he's close enough, but Jaemin holds it out of reach until Donghyuck relents.

When Jaemin runs the washcloth over Donghyuck's skin, Donghyuck flinches, expecting the shock of cold against his stomach, but the soft fabric is damp, warm from the water. Some of the tension bleeds out of Donghyuck's figure, and he keeps his eyes trained on Jaemin as he does all the work Donghyuck's fingers twitch to take over- habit trying to run his body like a machine.

"Is that good?" Jaemin asks once Donghyuck's stomach shines with a thin layer of wetness like half-polished brass in the light.

Donghyuck nods, still staring. He doesn't know if it's the passing time, if it's the fact that he's just mapped Jaemin's body with his own, burned Jaemin's face across his mind like a brand, but something about him feels almost familiar. Almost like he's not a stranger at all, though Donghyuck knows the odds of that are so low it's almost laughable.

He wonders if Jaemin is just like this with everyone, if the heat of his delicate touch is the same for anyone who passes him by, inspires smoke-whispers of intimacy regardless of the distance between them.

Jaemin offers him a small smile and retreats, tosses Donghyuck his shorts from where they’d been flung onto the floor, and disappears again. Donghyuck tugs the shorts back up his trembling legs, and for some reason, his gaze lingers on the last place he'd been able to track Jaemin's figure, waiting for the light in the bathroom to flick off and for his body to return, cast in shadow. Maybe he just wants the reassurance that he's not vanishing for good, as stupid as it makes him feel.

When Jaemin reappears, Donghyuck gets a few seconds of him cast in a yellow glow before Jaemin turns off the last light in the apartment, and darkness falls. Something seizes in Donghyuck's chest, but before it grips him too tightly to escape, his eyes begin to adjust, and he sees that it’s not all dark.

There's moonlight reaching through a part in the curtains, weak thanks to the cloud cover, but stubborn enough to still be seen. Jaemin passes through it on his way back to the bed, illuminated in shades of pale blue before the mattress creaks and dips under his weight.

"Anything else I can get for you?" Jaemin asks lowly, a hushed joke on his lips, turned towards Donghyuck's ear.

Donghyuck huffs out a light laugh, little more than an exhale, but when he glances Jaemin's way, he can see that it's drawn that small smile onto his lips again. "I don't know what the etiquette is for this," Donghyuck admits.

And there's that smile curling on Jaemin's lips again, softening his face as he looks at Donghyuck. "I don't either," he says quietly. "Do you like to cuddle or want some space?"

Donghyuck considers. Cuddling seems overly intimate, but it's not like that's a line they haven't already crossed. If the other option is simply lying on his back and waiting for the cold to sink down to his bones, he already knows what he'll choose.

The illusion of closeness is better than the reality that's been set into stone tonight.

"I'm guessing you wouldn't ask if you weren't willing," Donghyuck says, voice just as low as Jaemin's.

"You'd be right," Jaemin says, still with that half of a smile that just won't quit.

"Any chance you're a big spoon?" Donghyuck asks, hoping it sounds joking so he can play it off if Jaemin doesn't take it well.

He finds his worries are for nothing when Jaemin simply shrugs, tugs the duvet they'd kicked away back up the mattress and over both their bodies. "If that's what you want," he says. "I don't mind either way."

Donghyuck hesitates a moment longer before nodding. "Yeah."

"Okay," Jaemin all but whispers. He shuffles closer to Donghyuck under the blankets, and Donghyuck turns away from him, right hand pressed against his chest to feel the kick of his heart. The heat of Jaemin's body reaches Donghyuck's back just before Jaemin closes the rest of the distance between them, and his chest presses into Donghyuck's spine.

"Can you just-" Donghyuck starts as he feels Jaemin's hands start to worm their way around him "-I don't like having my stomach touched."

"Okay," Jaemin says, and this time it is a whisper. He tucks his left hand through the space between Donghyuck's neck and the pillow, and lets the other fall just above Donghyuck's own. "Like this?"

Donghyuck can feel the heat of Jaemin's breath around each word fan out across the back of his neck. He tries not to shiver. "Yeah," he answers, quiet as a mouse.

Jaemin hums, chest vibrating with it. "Night," he murmurs.

Donghyuck makes a soft sound in reply, the exhaustion that's been chasing at his heels for the past few hours finally catching up to him all at once. The weariness fogs his head as well as spirits could, and he finds himself closer to sleep than he'd thought, minutes away from drifting off and escaping the harsh world that holds him now.

With Jaemin's breath on his neck, heartbeat thrumming faintly against his back, more warmth than he can remember feeling all at once in a long time wrapped around him thanks to all these blankets, Jaemin's arms and bare skin on his, Donghyuck teeters at the edge of wakefulness. Just as he tips over the edge and falls into the murky mist of his subconscious, he thinks he hears Jaemin whisper something like  _ I hope you feel better sooner or later _ .

Morning comes all too bright for a winter day, and Donghyuck finds himself groaning as he squints at the sunlight cutting a bold line through the gap between his curtains. He blinks once, twice, and those aren't his curtains.

Donghyuck sits straight up in bed all at once, and though he regrets in an instant as pressure rushes into his head to press at his skull and the backs of his eyes, it gives him the answer he's looking for. Donghyuck rubs the sleep from his eyes to clear his bleary vision and there are his clothes on the floor. He turns, and there's an empty space next to him on the bed that's not his own. He runs his palm over the sheet, and it's still warm.

As a headache beats its way into his skull, so too come the memories. The empty parking lot, a silent answer to Donghyuck's plea of  _ please, it doesn't have to be like this, we could figure something out if you'd just try.  _ The crowded bar, the music floating through the air, the bartender with bright eyes, chapped lips, a kind face that somehow still spelled excitement like a promise.

"Jaemin?" The name rolls off Donghyuck's tongue before he can think to bite it back. He cradles his head in one hand and throws the covers back with the other, stumbles a few steps across the floor to reach the pile of his discarded clothes so he can start tugging them back on.

If Jaemin is already awake and the sun is already cutting too-bright into the apartment, then he's certainly overstayed his welcome. He lets his head go so he can yank on his pants, and nearly trips himself, underestimating how dizzy he is. His foot slips on the floor and he starts to careen to the side, curse on his tongue.

Before he can drop like a stone and smack into the ground, though, there's a loud sound of surprise from somewhere behind him and then strong hands catch both his biceps, steadying him. As soon as Donghyuck's stable on his feet again, the hands drop away and Jaemin steps around him.

"Careful,” he says. “Do you want something for-" Jaemin gestures vaguely at his own head "-or are you in a rush to get out of here."

Donghyuck feels heat prickle at his cheeks, but Jaemin's question seems genuine. "If it's not too much trouble," Donghyuck mutters, not quite meeting Jaemin's eyes.

"It's not," Jaemin tells him before stepping away and leaving him to finish pulling on his shirt and sweater.

By the time Donghyuck has his coat over his shoulders again, Jaemin is leaning against the wall, a glass of water in one hand and a pill bottle in the other. Donghyuck considers for a moment that it might not be the smartest decision to accept drugs from a stranger, but his head throbs and he figures that if Jaemin wanted to fuck him up, he'd have done it before  _ actually  _ fucking him and then spooning him to sleep.

Donghyuck reaches out and takes the bottle from Jaemin's open palm, twists the cap and shakes a pill into his hand. Jaemin passes him the glass of water and he swallows down the pill and then the rest of the water as well, because his throat is scratchy and parched and he's sure last night must have dehydrated him somehow.

“Thanks,” he says when he’s done, more of a croak than anything, “for… um. Everything.”

Jaemin offers him that small smile again. “No problem,” he says. 

“I’ll see you around, I guess,” Donghyuck mutters, heading past Jaemin for the door. 

He reaches for the handle, ready to beat a hasty retreat, and just before he leaves, he hears Jaemin’s voice from behind him, quiet like an echo. “You know where to find me.”

He does.

The last dredges of January give way to February. 

Donghyuck taps into some of the cushion of his savings from performing at high society parties for the upper class, for the vultures that circle nobility like hawks, for the nobility that are more for show than anything else these days. He moves out of his apartment and into one halfway across the city- smaller and emptier, but farther from the grand buildings he’d once haunted, and free from the ghosts that roam his old home. During the day, he works at the city library, same as always. Even in the winter, it’s often swarmed with people, so it keeps him busy, keeps him distracted. 

Nights, he returns to the dive bar, and Taeil, the owner, puts him right back in front of the microphone whenever he wants the live music that draws people to the bar, and the young pianist Donghyuck has come to know as Chenle can’t play. Donghyuck sings often, because Chenle is still in school and as his semester picks up, he’s at the dive bar less and less. Sometimes, Donghyuck plays the piano too, though he knows he’s not as good as Chenle. The crowd never seems to mind, though, too buzzed and thoughtless to care. Donghyuck still envies them with something sharp and vicious.

Donghyuck thinks the reason Taeil likes him so much is that he performs for a fraction of the pay he got when he was consorting with the city’s elites. It’s much the same as what he’d earned before someone had spotted him, heard the potential of his honey voice, and dragged him out of the poorly lit corner of the bar and brought him all the way to the top of the tallest towers. It had been exciting, then, but Donghyuck knows now that the fall from that high doesn’t lend itself to an easy recovery. And it’s too dangerous, all too easy to fall from the top of the world, so Donghyuck thinks it’s a good thing he’ll probably never be invited back now. 

Singing here isn’t about the money anyway. Donghyuck doesn’t care that he barely gets minimum wage, free drinks and orange slices as tips. He doesn’t care, because this is about the escape, the distraction. This is about filling as many waking hours with the presence of other people as possible, so he never has to be alone with his thoughts, with the still-throbbing ache in his chest, hurt still cut deep into his bones. 

And, well, there’s something else too. There’s Jaemin across the room, locked on the other side of the bar except for when he goes on break and Donghyuck drags him into the bathroom to kiss him in a dingy stall until neither of them can think anymore. There’s Jaemin, sliding Donghyuck a glass of water after he comes down from a performance to let the jukebox take over, how he knows Donghyuck’s parched and his throat is scratchy before he even says anything. There’s Jaemin pouring him a drink and chatting absently when traffic at the bar is slow, tucking little tidbits of information about himself into Donghyuck’s pockets like plucked flowers, like pink shells picked up from the beach. 

At the end of too many nights to count, there’s Jaemin taking Donghyuck home again and again, and it makes Donghyuck shake how this has almost stopped feeling like chasing a drug to keep himself high and started feeling like something else. Something he can’t think too hard about. 

It doesn’t matter. He and Jaemin are fast friends - if that's even the right word for what they are - though it’s only thanks to circumstance. Jaemin is kind- probably too kind for his own good. Donghyuck tries to apologize for dashing his chances of meeting anyone at the bar now, and Jaemin tells him he doesn’t care, isn’t looking for anything serious now anyway. It scares Donghyuck how he thinks he can tell that it’s a lie, that he knows there’s care in Jaemin’s eyes and in his touch, in all the things he does, that he knows Jaemin was made for loving, and this thing between them certainly isn’t that.

The sex is good though. With no threat looming over them, Donghyuck is free to kiss down Jaemin’s jaw and neck, suck bruises into his throat and above his collarbones without fear of being found out, and Jaemin can mark him up just the same. There’s no rush, no  _ quick, we have to hurry before anyone notices I’m missing.  _ It’s just Donghyuck and Jaemin in that small studio apartment, no one waiting up, no hunters chasing their heels to try and catch them doing something dirty. They can go as fast as they want, or draw it out and out and out like stretching a band until it finally snaps like a shotgun, firecrackers bursting in the night. 

It’s still just fucking, and Donghyuck knows there’s no  _ real  _ comparison between this and actually making love, knows there’s nothing quite like seeing part of your own soul reflected in a lover’s eyes, feeling part of theirs pressed against your lips in the way they kiss you, but this isn’t altogether worse. This is still heat and skin and the only thing Donghyuck knows how to want now. And it’s easier than it ever was before, than everything Donghyuck had grown used to.

They find a rhythm. Donghyuck pulls and pulls until Jaemin pushes back, asks again and again until Jaemin gives him what he wants. On occasion, when Jaemin asks something in return, it’s easy for Donghyuck to agree. There’s no reason in the world to say no.

So Donghyuck isn’t laughing in the streets or dancing in the dark anymore, isn’t caught up in a love so strong and terribly beautiful it threatens to ruin him time and time again, but he’s holding on, carrying on with life. He’s not better, but he’s making slow progress, picking up the pieces that he’d shattered into on that cold night in early January. He hasn’t quite sewn himself back together in a patchwork body of who he used to be, but he’s working on it. He’s not breaking any more. He’s… stagnant. Clutching a buoy at sea and floating in the dark, endless sea. He hurts, but he’s breathing. The tide hasn’t dragged him under.

He thinks this may be as good as it gets for a while.

And then everything goes to utter shit.

On the fourteenth of March, there's an announcement plastered in the headlines of every news article:  _ second son of the crown and the heir to the massive Lee cosmetics fortune are formally engaged _ . Mark and Jeno are getting married in the autumn. 

Donghyuck sees the news an hour after getting to work, or rather,  _ hears  _ it spill from the lips of a girl walking around the second floor with her friend.  _ Can you believe it? The prince getting married already? Jeno and Mark Lee, already share the name and everything. It’s like fate.  _ The words sink like stones in Donghyuck’s gut, and he feels his heart plummet right along with it.

He’s never fled to the nearest bathroom so quickly. His hands shake as he tugs his phone from his pocket and types into the search bar with trembling fingers. He can’t believe it’s true, doesn’t want to. It’s so soon, too soon. But there it is, undeniable, in every article that pops up when his search finishes loading. Pictures of Mark and Jeno, engagement rings on their fingers. An unbreakable promise.

Donghyuck’s next breath comes as a terrible, shaky gasp, and he swallows it down in an instant. He can’t break down here at work, here in the brightly lit bathroom that smells like lemon from the handsoap in the dispensers. So he pushes down the fresh swell of pain, bottles up the fresh blood spilling from a reopened wound, and tells himself it will have to wait.

Once he catches his breath, once the shaking of his hands is faint enough to pass off as low blood sugar, he leaves the bathroom behind, and soldiers through the rest of his shift with a customer service smile that never even dreams of reaching his eyes. 

It’s hours later, after he’s left the library and dragged himself to the dive bar even though he’s not on the schedule, that the chinks in his armor start to show, that his grip on the reins of his self control weakens to nothing. In a chance of luck, Jaemin is working behind the counter when Donghyuck gets there. (Maybe not entirely luck, maybe Donghyuck remembered he was scheduled for the afternoon and early evening.)

Donghyuck wastes no time claiming a bar stool and ordering himself a drink, and then another and another. Jaemin serves him with a cautious eye, but it’s not until the fourth drink that Donghyuck downs too soon after getting that Jaemin finally asks if he’s had a rough day.

Donghyuck laughs, and it’s an empty sound. “You could say that.”

Jaemin passes him a glass of water with a frown, and Donghyuck doesn't push it away, but he doesn’t drink it either. “Wanna talk?”

Donghyuck looks down at the bartop, almost shined enough for him to see a faint outline of himself in it. “I just wanna get fucking wasted,” he says, bitterness crawling up his throat and slipping into his voice. 

There’s a beat of dropped silence before Jaemin answers. “You know I’ll have to cut you off at some point.”

“I don’t care,” Donghyuck says, looking up at the space just next to Jaemin’s face. “Just give me whatever you can and when you kick me out, I’ll go pass out in a ditch or something. I just don’t fucking  _ care _ .”

Something flashes in Jaemin’s eyes, and Donghyuck looks back at the glass of water in front of him. He takes a sip just to try and get Jaemin off his case. “Happy now?”

Jaemin doesn’t answer, but Donghyuck knows that he’s biting something back. He knows that this time, Jaemin hesitates, because it’s clear as day that Donghyuck is about to make an absolute mess of himself, and there’s no way this is good for him, no way this is what he really needs right now, but Donghyuck will say as many times as he has to that he  _ doesn’t care _ . This is what he wants, and if he can’t get it from Jaemin, he’ll try to get it somewhere else.

Maybe that’s what makes Jaemin give in. He lifts a glass from under the counter and pours something rich and dark into it. He sets it in front of Donghyuck and says, “Drink it slowly. I’m serious; that shit burns.”

Donghyuck resists the urge to scoff, just barely, and abandons the water to sip at whatever liquor Jaemin has given him. To Jaemin’s credit, he’s right about the burn. It matches well with the acid bubbling in the pit of Donghyuck’s stomach, and he welcomes the fire, even if he can’t take it all at once. He wonders if that’s why Jaemin had picked this drink- if he’d put in front of Donghyuck the only thing he knew he couldn’t kick back in one go. He’s smart. His heart is too good.

Jaemin heads down the bar to tend to other customers, and Donghyuck slumps, staring at his reflection in the still surface of his drink. All he sees is a shadow of himself, and it’s fitting; that’s all he feels like. Two months past and he’s reduced to rubble all over again, the same godforsaken mess he’d been before.

Somehow, the time slips away from Donghyuck even though every minute feels agonizingly slow. Jaemin tricks him into drinking his whole glass of water, bribes him into eating half a dozen orange slices and a handful of almonds that must have come from Jaemin’s own stash of work snacks. Donghyuck loses track of how many drinks he’s had, of how many affronted looks he’s gotten from other patrons at the bar, of how many times Jaemin’s eyes flick across the counter towards him and his worried gaze weighs like lead on Donghyuck’s chest. 

He doesn’t know how late it is when he stands from his stool to head to the bathroom and nearly cracks his head open slipping on nothing and falling into the bar. He manages to catch himself before any real damage is done, manages to make it to the bathroom and back in one piece, but when he returns and tries to get another drink, he’s met with Jaemin’s face pulled in a tight line, a deep crease between his brows. 

“Just one more,” Donghyuck needles, words slurring on his tongue.

“No,” Jaemin says, and his voice is firm. Firmer than Donghyuck’s ever heard before. “I told you I would cut you off and I’m doing it now.”

“But-”

“ _ No _ ,” Jaemin says. This time, even through the fog clouding Donghyuck’s head, he can tell Jaemin means it, that this word is final. “I shouldn’t have even waited this long. You’re not getting another fucking drop, Donghyuck.”

The venom boiling in Donghyuck’s stomach surges up his throat, burning on the way out as he spits  _ fuck you _ , right into Jaemin’s face. He’s not even sure he means it, but he’s so angry, so hurt, so off his fucking ass that he can’t even remember how to care. This is what wounded animals do, isn’t it? They scratch and bite and claw and lash out at anyone stupid enough to get too close. In this state, it doesn’t matter to Donghyuck that he’s the one who came here to find Jaemin, not the other way around. 

Jaemin flinches at the curse, but he doesn’t back down. “This heartbreak is so ugly on you,” he says softly. With the way Jaemin is standing, there’s no way for Donghyuck to see that his grip on the edge of the bar back is white knuckled, that his hands are shaking regardless.

Jaemin says it so quietly, Donghyuck almost doesn’t hear it over the sound of the jukebox. He catches it though, like a wisp of smoke souring in his mouth. Something slices through him, scalding hot. He wishes Jaemin hadn’t said it so calmly, like he wasn’t even saying it to hurt Donghyuck back, like it was just a  _ fact _ . The heat lodges in his chest, flames between his ribs. His eyes burn and he bites down on the inside of his cheek so hard he tastes copper on his tongue. 

“I’m leaving,” he mutters, tearing his eyes away from Jaemin’s face, washed in a deep shade of red by the colored lights over the bar. Donghyuck makes it as far as the floor before he stumbles again, has to steady himself on the bartop to keep from crashing into the ground or beaning himself on another stool.

“You’ll kill yourself if you go out like this,” Jaemin says, emerging from behind the bar to stand between Donghyuck and the door, blocking his way. 

“Then I guess I’ll fucking die,” Donghyuck grits out, pushing off the counter and trying to move past Jaemin. 

Jaemin steps to the side, continues blocking his way. “No, you won’t. I’m taking you home.”

“Aren’t you still working?” Donghyuck asks. The words feel wrong on his tongue, come out jumbled.

Jaemin understands regardless. “I’ve been off the clock for almost an hour,” Jaemin tells him. “I’m taking you home.” He reaches out, puts a hand on Donghyuck’s shoulder, but Donghyuck shoves him off. He’s still swimming in bitter spirits.

“I don’t want your help,” he lies through his teeth.

“Tough fucking luck,” Jaemin spits back. He grabs Donghyuck’s arm again, and this time holds on tight enough that Donghyuck can’t shake him. The world shrinks down to just Jaemin’s red face, twisted with frustration and something else, and to the feeling of his fingers digging through Donghyuck’s jacket and into his skin.

In a moment that seems to drag on forever, Donghyuck stares at the blurred lines of Jaemin’s face, feels his head spin and his knees threaten to buckle under him. When the moment passes, Donghyuck gives in. He doesn’t say anything, won’t let go of what’s left of the shambles of his pride to admit defeat like that, but he stops straining against Jaemin, and that’s enough. Jaemin wraps an arm around his middle to keep him balanced and upright, and Donghyuck grudgingly slings an arm around Jaemin’s shoulders. He lets Jaemin lead him out of the noisy dive bar and into the street in utter silence. 

“Where do you live?” Jaemin asks once they’re out in the still-sharp night air.

Donghyuck opens his mouth, and in his drunken state, his lips start to form the first syllable of his old address. It takes him too long to realize what he’s doing, and by then it’s too late- he’s already remembered everything. The alcohol in his veins doesn’t dull the pain as it all comes rushing back into the forefront of his mind. He tries to take a step, like this is something he can just walk away from, and he stumbles. 

Jaemin’s grip on his waist tightens and he throws out his other arm for Donghyuck to clutch so he doesn’t fall forward. Donghyuck’s next breath is a gasp that rattles into him and shakes furiously on the way out. He sags against Jaemin, the heat of his anger swallowed by icy hurt.

“Donghyuck,” Jaemin says, and this time his voice is nowhere near as harsh as it had been before. “Can you give me your address?”

Donghyuck drags in another breath. His eyes sting like he’s opened them underwater, and his throat is slowly closing, blocking off his lungs. He chokes out his address for Jaemin, and then his throat feels so tight he can barely breathe. It’s lucky he doesn’t live too far away anymore, because he lasts less than five minutes before he can’t blink away the burn in his eyes any longer and the first tear falls down his cheek, freezing in the chilly air. 

It’s like the first crack in the dam that Donghyuck’s been building. He’s been good so far, hasn’t cried again since breaking down in Jaemin’s bed two months ago, but now all that suppressed pressure is bearing down on him, and the alcohol has dulled his mind and functions enough that he can’t seal up the cracks at they splinter through his walls. He knows it’s only a matter of time before the cracks spiderweb together and destroy the integrity of his barriers enough to break them down entirely. 

To break  _ him  _ down entirely.

It’s hard to walk, to get one foot in front of the other when his legs feel like they’re made of gelatin, but for all that he staggers and sags against Jaemin, Donghyuck really is trying. Trying to get back to his apartment before the dam bursts and he falls apart on the sidewalk under a harsh yellow street light. He almost makes it. 

His building is within sight (Jaemin’s sight, not his own- blurred by alcohol and growing hazier by the second as tears continue to well up and slip out) when they hit a crack in the pavement and Donghyuck’s foot catches in it. He’s too slow to notice, and his ankle rolls as he tries to step forward. He comes to such a sudden stop, still caught in the uneven ground, that he’s yanked out of Jaemin’s hold, and finally goes crashing to the ground like he’s been barely avoiding all night long. 

Donghyuck’s knees hit the pavement first, then his hands. He manages to catch himself before his head smacks into the ground, but his palms sting and his knees ache terribly, and he’s so startled by the whole ordeal that the last string holding him together snaps and he lets out a wretched sob right there on the streetside in front of his apartment. 

As soon as the dam breaks, there’s nothing Donghyuck can do to stop it. He curls in on himself, sinking so his head rests on his forearms, and he cries so hard his whole body shakes like he’s caught in a storm.

“Donghyuck!” Jaemin’s startled voice cuts through the pounding in Donghyuck’s head, but he can’t catch his breath to say anything in response.

“Donghyuck,” Jaemin says again, urgency dripping in his name. Jaemin must crouch down on the sidewalk beside Donghyuck, because all of a sudden, he can feel Jaemin’s hands on him, on his shoulder and back. “Are you hurt?” Jaemin asks.

Another ugly sob tears out of Donghyuck, and he shudders, still can’t breathe. He tries to shake his head, but he’s not sure Jaemin can see. 

“Oh my god, Donghyuck, breathe,  _ breathe _ ,” Jaemin instructs, almost a hint of desperation alongside the panic in his voice. “We’re almost there. Can you hold on a little longer for me?”

Whatever panic swims through Jaemin at the sight of Donghyuck sprawled on the pavement and sobbing like a newborn opening its eyes to darkness for the first time, it pales in comparison to what clutches Donghyuck in an impossibly tight grasp and refuses to let go. Each time his throat seizes and he isn’t sure he’ll be able to draw air into his shrinking lungs, the fear grips tighter. The thought of passing out on the pavement in front of Jaemin makes Donghyuck’s head swim. 

The sound of Jaemin’s voice comes again, distant and drowned out by the blood rushing in Donghyuck’s ears, but then Jaemin’s hooking his arms under Donghyuck’s, hauling him up from the ground. It’s like Donghyuck’s lungs expand all at once, and suddenly, in a rush of relief that leaves him dizzy, he can breathe again. Somehow, Donghyuck manages to get his feet under himself, and Jaemin shifts his startlingly tight grip so that he can as good as drag Donghyuck the rest of the way to his building.

It’s a miracle they make it inside without anyone seeing, without anyone having to wonder for a moment whether Donghyuck’s being taken advantage of when really the polar opposite is true. They make it to the elevator and Donghyuck manages to gasp his floor number before he collapses against the wall, held up only by cold metal on one side, and Jaemin on his other.

As the elevator lurches into motion, the world spins. Donghyuck presses a hand flat against the wall to try and ground himself, but the shock of cold does little to draw him back into himself. There’s still tears every time he blinks, still that tightness in his chest has he nearly strangles himself trying to hold back another sob. He doesn’t want anyone to see him like this. Doesn’t want Jaemin to see him like this, because he may have seen Donghyuck cry before, but he’s never seen him break down into oblivion, and there’s a difference. 

There’s intimacy in sex, but this is something else entirely. 

The elevator doors shake open and Jaemin clutches Donghyuck tightly as he as good as carries him out into the hall. “Which room?” Jaemin asks.

Donghyuck lifts a shaking hand to point at the door ahead and to the right of the elevator, not sure he can speak around the sudden nausea starting to swell up in his gut. 

Jaemin gets them there, stuffs his hand into Donghyuck’s pockets to find his keys and unlock the door, and Donghyuck feels heat flash through him as they stumble together into the apartment and Jaemin kicks the door shut. Even intoxicated out of his mind, he knows what that feeling means when paired with the uneasy churning of his stomach, so he tears himself out of Jaemin’s hold and crashes through his bathroom door to throw himself on the floor in front of the toilet before upchucking half the burning contents of his stomach. 

Sagged over the lip of the toilet, dirtying the sleeves of his coat, though he’s hardly in any state to care, Donghyuck coughs and hacks up into the bowl, and is suddenly glad for the tears blurring his vision so he doesn’t have to see whatever he’s just spit out. 

Distantly, he hears Jaemin say  _ oh, god,  _ and then the sound of shuffling, but his heartbeat is pounding loud in his ears, and it drowns almost everything else out. As his coughs turn to wheezes, and he settles for a moment, he drains the last vestiges of his strength to push off the toilet and flush away his vomit so the smell doesn’t set him off again. 

As the water circles the drain, Donghyuck becomes aware of Jaemin at the sink, killing the tap and coming closer until he sinks down to his knees next to Donghyuck with a wet washcloth in his hands. “Here,” Jaemin says gently, reaching out to hold Donghyuck’s jaw in one hand, wiping his mouth with the cloth in the other. When he pulls his hands away again, Donghyuck’s skin feels burning hot. He blinks, but he still can’t make out Jaemin’s face; it appears fragmented by the tears in Donghyuck’s eyes, like he’s viewing him through a cracked lense. 

“You’re probably gonna hurl again,” Jaemin tells him, resting a hand momentarily on Donghyuck’s shoulder before rising and heading to the sink again, running the water to clean the washcloth. 

Donghyuck can’t say anything, can’t do anything but let his head drop onto one of his arms, still balanced on the edge of the bowl, and try to swallow around the thick bitterness coating his mouth and stinging down his throat. Like Jaemin has predicted, discomfort swells in his stomach once more, and he hiccups twice before throwing up into the toilet again. He makes a wretched sound, but it’s nowhere near as wretched as he feels.

Donghyuck’s chest heaves as he tries to catch his breath, and his throat feels unbearably raw as he spits and spits and  _ keeps  _ spitting into the toilet to try and rid his mouth of the awful taste, with no luck. He feels fresh tears prick at his eyes, burning as he blinks furiously, and he wants to pass out then and there. Of course, he can’t; the pain keeps him just on the wrong side of consciousness. 

As he contemplates drowning in the toilet bowl, Jaemin returns to his side, lifting his head up with a careful hand to press a cup of water to his lips. Donghyuck doesn’t even have the capacity to wonder how Jaemin had found the cup and made it back so easily- all he has the strength for is sucking in a mouthful of water and swishing it around, over his teeth and his tongue, and then spitting it out into the toilet. 

The worst of the sourness coating his mouth seems to wash away with the water, and Donghyuck makes a choked sound he hopes Jaemin can understand as  _ more _ . Somehow, Jaemin does get the message, and tips another mouthful past Donghyuck’s lips. Donghyuck swishes the water around and spits again, and there’s almost a sense of relief in the next breath he takes. His next gasp for another sip comes out almost coherent, and when Donghyuck drinks again, he swallows in hopes of washing down the bile in his throat. He gets one more sip down before heat flashes over his skin and he slumps over the toilet, awaiting the inevitable. 

Hiccups follow the hot flash, but although Donghyuck braces for another round of puking, all that comes up are dry heaves and spittle. It doesn’t burn his throat as badly, but his chest aches with the effort, and he loses track of how long he heaves and wheezes before he sees stars in his eyes and finally sags, utterly spent, against the toilet again. He hardly even has the clarity to think  _ at least it’s over _ .

Donghyuck thinks he might just stay like this, wait until he falls asleep propped up and eventually crashes to the bathroom floor, might just never move again. If he was alone, that’s probably all he’d be able to manage. But Jaemin is still at his side, lifts his head up from the toilet one more time to wipe off his lips, his chin, the bottoms of his cheeks. The water soaked through the washcloth is so mild, Donghyuck almost can’t feel it at all. 

Before Jaemin stands, he coaxes Donghyuck into drinking the rest of the water, and then leans him against the wall so he can flush the toilet without Donghyuck’s head still lolling into it. Donghyuck watches blearily as Jaemin rinses the washcloth and then abandons it in the sink, leaving the cup there too so he has both hands available when he sinks down beside Donghyuck again. Donghyuck’s lost track of how many times he’s already done this.

“Let’s get you to bed,” Jaemin says, reaching for Donghyuck and tugging the shoes he hadn’t realized he was still wearing off his feet, easing the jacket off his shoulders, pulling him out of it so it crumples in a pile on the floor. 

Donghyuck doesn’t have the strength or energy to protest, so he lets Jaemin tug him to his shaky feet and practically carry him out of the bathroom and to his bed. Jaemin must have turned on the lights, because Donghyuck can see his barren room in all its non-existent glory as he staggers across the floor towards his bed. His knees hit the mattress and buckle, and he collapses forward, kept from falling flat on his face only by Jaemin tightening his grip and slowing Donghyuck’s descent enough that he can curl to the side and land on his shoulder and hip instead. 

“ _ Careful _ ,” Jaemin wheezes as Donghyuck nearly drags him down as well. He manages to disentangle himself from Donghyuck before falling too, and sets to urging Donghyuck further up the bed so he can pull back the sheets for him. 

As Donghyuck crawls towards his pillows, he can hear Jaemin muttering under his breath, but can’t make out the words. He wants to snap, wants to know what Jaemin is saying because it can’t possibly be good if he’s not speaking loud enough for Donghyuck to hear, but Donghyuck doesn’t have the energy, doesn’t have the will for it now. Besides, a part of him knows he deserves whatever Jaemin might be saying, knows he’s acting like a child, even though that’s the last thing he ever wants to be seen as. Knows he brought this on himself by reaching for the stars, only to fall back to Earth when the star he caught in his grasp nearly burned him alive.

“I’m gonna put the waste basket here,” Jaemin says, this time for Donghyuck to hear. 

Donghyuck scrubs at his eyes with the bend of his wrist, and when Jaemin emerges from the bathroom again, Donghyuck can finally see him with more clarity than if he was looking at him from under water. Jaemin sets the now empty trash down on the floor at the side of Donghyuck’s bed and then slips off to the bathroom again. Donghyuck hears water running, and his mind trips back to the first night he’d laid in Jaemin’s bed, scene so similar to this yet so different. He doesn’t have the mental fortitude now to wonder how the hell he got here from there, how the hell casual sex lead to Jaemin being the one here in his apartment, taking care of the mess Donghyuck’s made of himself. 

Jaemin returns to Donghyuck’s bedside with hands that smell like fresh cotton and that cup of water, filled again. He sets the cup on Donghyuck’s nightstand - the only real furniture in the room other than the bedframe - and hesitates for a moment. He looks at Donghyuck, sprawled miserably at the edge of the bed, flushed red, still in work pants and a pullover, and like a trick of the light, something passes over his face.

“It’ll get easier,” Jaemin says softly, leaning down to smooth away the sweaty hair plastered to Donghyuck’s forehead. “It won’t hurt like this forever.” He thumbs at the tears caught in the creases under Donghyuck’s eyes, and everything in Donghyuck still hurts so much that it’s hard to breathe, but that delicate touch feels like the brush of butterfly wings against his skin. 

Something shakes in Donghyuck’s chest, threatening to knock loose. He wants to believe Jaemin so badly. 

Jaemin’s hand lingers on Donghyuck’s cheek a moment longer, and Donghyuck manages to forget that he hadn’t wanted Jaemin to see him like this. Manages to focus on just the soft brush of Jaemin’s skin against his, achingly tender. His eyes fall shut and he thinks maybe he can actually find some semblance of peace long enough to slip off to sleep.

But then Jaemin draws his hand back, moves like he’s readying himself to leave, and a sudden panic flares sharp and vicious in Donghyuck’s chest. A tear cuts down Donghyuck’s cheek and he gasps,  _ wait, please _ , trying to find Jaemin’s blurred form again through the bright, blinding heat swelling in his eyes. “ _ Please don’t leave me _ .” 

It comes out so fucking raw that Donghyuck wonders if his throat is bleeding, if that’s why he feels like he can’t swallow, can’t breathe at the thought of being left alone like this. He’ll never admit it, but there’s a reason he wound up at the dive bar and not here in his apartment with a cheap bottle of vodka instead. It’s the same reason he tries to reach out and grab Jaemin’s arm before he can walk away. 

The plea must startle Jaemin, because he drops heavily onto the side of the bed, thigh pressed against Donghyuck’s hip, and says in a shaken voice, “I’m here, Donghyuck.” He rests a hand on Donghyuck’s arm and rubs gently as if to assure him. “I’ll stay.”

Relief hits Donghyuck like the crash of a wave, pressing against his chest and then wrapping around him. But this wave doesn’t drag him under- it sweeps him up and keeps him afloat. Donghyuck lets out a breath, and then, to his horror, he starts to cry again. 

Maybe it’s because - even if it’s just for now - Jaemin has promised to stay by his side. Because Jaemin doesn’t owe him anything, but he’s still giving Donghyuck more here than his last lover ever had, still staying because Donghyuck has asked, like the man he loved and lost never could. Because it  _ hurts _ that Jaemin makes it sound so simple, so easy, when Donghyuck had grown so used to thinking that things like this were out of his reach, impossible.

And how do you verbalize something like that? How can you tell a hookup it feels like he’s holding your heart so carefully it makes you hate the one who came before him for breaking you apart like it was nothing, makes you hate him even though you still love him with what feels like every fiber for your being? There’s no way to say something like that. 

So Donghyuck cries. He cries, and when Jaemin shifts, somehow getting on Donghyuck’s other side so he can run both his hands up and down Donghyuck’s back in an attempt to console him, Donghyuck crawls half into his lap, just to feel something. Jaw loosened by the cries slipping past his lips, he starts to let other things slip out too, until he’s spilling the whole story in nonsensical babble that he’s not sure Jaemin even understands. 

How it had started in beautiful rooms, eyes catching across the floor in stolen stares, Donghyuck performing with fire in his veins at the knowledge that someone was watching so attentively, that he was being admired. How he’d known about the betrothal from the very beginning, from the first stolen kiss in a back hall, how the knowledge of it had felt like a noose around their necks, because it wasn’t what either of them had wanted- was a promise born of necessity, not love. How a part of him had always hoped that maybe they’d be able to change things, rewrite the ending of the story, that they wouldn’t have to sneak around anymore because the betrothal would be called off and they could just be  _ together _ . 

Donghyuck’s tears subside and then swell again as he mumbles and slurs his way through the whole ugly story, as Jaemin listens silently, as he rubs his back, combs the hair out of his face, tries to comfort him without words, as Donghyuck spills his guts.

How it had ended in that empty parking lot, a meeting that never even happened, because Donghyuck’s pleas of  _ just meet me there one more time, please, and we can talk about this, it doesn’t have to end like this _ , had fallen on deaf ears, on an already made-up mind. How he’d been left behind without another word, without a proper goodbye, their last kiss cold and aching in a dark motel room. 

How the betrothal is a real engagement now. Official. How the promise is unbreakable now, to be sealed with an autumn ceremony. 

How he’d been idiodic, a fool for ever believing in love like that.

_ “I just wanted him to pick me,”  _ Donghyuck says, choked and broken. “I thought what we had could have been enough.  _ I  _ could have been enough.” He lets out a terrible shaking breath. “I would have done anything for him. I would have ruined everything,  _ myself,  _ as many times as he asked, if it meant we could be together _. _ ” Twin tears track down his cheeks and one last admission slips free:  _ “I just thought we felt the same. I thought he could love me that much too. _ ”

For a long time, Jaemin is silent. 

He runs his thumb across the soft skin under Donghyuck’s eyes to brush away the last of his tears, cups his cheek, tucks a layer of messy runaway hair behind his ear, and all the while he doesn’t say a word, just looks down at Donghyuck with an expression Donghyuck is too bleary-eyed and worn out to understand. He starts to think that maybe Jaemin hadn’t really heard a word of what he’d said, that he’d been too nonsensical, butchered too many phrases for Jaemin to follow, but then Jaemin brushes the backs of his knuckles, gentle as can be, across Donghyuck’s forehead, and leans down to press a feather-light kiss to his skin.

“Love isn’t ruin,” he whispers, lips barely lifted from Donghyuck’s temple. “You  _ are  _ enough, Donghyuck. More than that. You deserve someone who can pick you, who  _ will  _ pick you. It’s not supposed to be about loving someone more, just about loving them  _ enough _ . You deserve someone who loves you enough.”

Jaemin leans away slowly, and his eyes, trained on Donghyuck’s, are so sad that it hurts to see. It’s those eyes, something in his face, that Donghyuck can’t bear to look at for another second. He lets the weight tugging at his lids take over, lashes kissing his cheeks as he blocks out the image of Jaemin’s face, of his dark eyes, saying what he can’t find the words for.

Donghyuck curls into the blankets, and Jaemin’s hands settle on his back again, tracing wisps of clouds into his sweater. “I’ll stay until you fall asleep,” Jaemin promises softly. And he does. 

The last thing Donghyuck is aware of feeling before he sinks under into oblivion, is the warmth of Jaemin’s hands, steady and reassuring.  _ I’m here. You are not alone.  _

Donghyuck wakes up feeling like he’d fallen down a flight of stairs the night before. His head pounds like a drumline has set up residence on the inside of his skull, and his whole body aches- not in the kind of heartache that spreads through his limbs until it consumes every inch of him, but a real, physical ache, like he’s been beaten black and blue by a baseball bat. His curtains are drawn tightly, but the light that seeps in through the cracks stings his already sore eyes and makes it that much harder to rub the gunk from his lashes and look around.

He’s barely come to consciousness, but he already wants to go to sleep again. His mouth feels like it’s filled with steel wool, and his stomach writhes uncomfortably, and everything hurts in a new and terrible way. He wants to sleep again, but he needs painkillers first, needs to make sure it really is Sunday so he doesn’t flat out miss work and get chewed out by his boss.

Donghyuck pushes himself upright, gets a headrush that makes his brain feel like it’s caught fire, and his vision fogs over with black for a long moment before clearing again. He squints down at himself, still stuck in the uncomfortable confines of his work clothes, and before his mind has caught up to the movement of his body, he’s fumbling with the button on his pants, trying to wriggle out of them and free his legs. There isn’t an ounce of grace to it, and he nearly falls off the edge of the bed before he kicks his second ankle free and sends the pants into a heap on the floor. 

It’s then, as he braces himself against the mattress to keep from tumbling down after his discarded slacks and smacking his head into something for  _ real _ , that his gaze drops to his bedside table, and the whole world seems to grind to a halt. There, right before his eyes, is a glass of water, a pill bottle with the cap already loosened, and his phone, face down. He knows for a fact that he didn’t put any of it here.

The night before, fuzzy and more blackened static to him than anything else, comes to him in disjointed flashes. He remembers walking into the bar, drinking like it was the end of the world (it felt like it was), remembers fighting with Jaemin, trying to leave the bar, Jaemin grabbing onto him and refusing to be shaken off. 

It falls to pieces after that. Tripping on the sidewalk. Donghyuck looks at his palms, red and raw. Throwing up in the bathroom. Donghyuck swallows around what feels like a rock in his throat. Jaemin practically carrying him to bed. 

_ Jaemin _ .

Something heavy sinks in Donghyuck’s somach and weighs like an anchor. He scrambles to piece together the rest of the night, but memories slip through his hands like grains of sand, nothing more than faint impressions before flying away. Sobbing, wanting to scream. Jaemin’s hands on his cheeks, his eyes like pools so deep they might be bottomless. Babbling, rambling, and then silence until Jaemin whispers something he no longer remembers. 

The anchor in Donghyuck’s gut locks in place, an immovable pressure that makes him feel like he’s going to be sick. He doesn’t remember what he said or did, what all he subjected Jaemin to. All he’s left with now is the terrible feeling twisting up his insides that he’s done something he shouldn’t have. That he’s gone too far, somehow, and ruined things.

It makes everything harder to bear. Makes Donghyuck’s headache worse and makes his stomach clench and twist something awful. So Donghyuck shoves the thoughts down as far as he can, reaches for the medicine at his bedside and shakes three pills into the cap. He downs them in one go with a large drink of water, fighting back the urge to gag, and then checks his phone for the date. The screen is too bright, but in the half second that it blinds him, he sees the bolded  _ Sunday, March 15th _ printed across the screen. It’s all he needs to see before dropping his phone face down on the table again, tugging his sweater and shirt over his head, and then pulling the blankets all the way up to his hairline, burrowing under like he can hide from the world, from everything. 

He doesn’t get much sleep, but he stays there for a long time. 

For a week, Donghyuck isn’t scheduled at the bar at all - Chenle must be on a short break from classes because of midterms. Normally, he’d still go in at least a few times anyway to keep himself busy and distracted, to make the social rounds, to bother Doyoung, to talk with Jaemin. To do more than just talk with Jaemin.

But the leaden feeling in Donghyuck's gut doesn't dissipate as the week drags on; it stays on him like a wine stain he can't scrub off his skin no matter how hard he tries. It makes him queasy at the thought of seeing Jaemin again, knowing he fucked something up between them but now knowing what exactly it was. Besides, he's not even sure Jaemin would  _ want  _ to see him after the mess he made.

It's better this way, he decides. Better to stay away, hang out at the library even after his shift ends and try to distract himself with books he pulls off shelves but never makes it more than ten pages into before he's itching for something else. He tries needling his coworkers, but Renjun - his favorite - has been out sick with something nasty since the twelfth, and Taeyong is nearly impossible to get riled up; he just gives Donghyuck a tired look that shuts down anything Donghyuck might try before he can even do it.

So with no distractions, no safe-haven at the bar, no coworkers to shoot the shit or play around with during breaks, Donghyuck doesn't have anything to keep his mind off the looming news of Mark and Jeno's engagement, playing on a taunting loop in his head. Almost as bad as that, is the fact that he can't stop thinking about Jaemin, about what possibly could have happened during the night he was black out drunk to make him feel like this, like he's climbed a tall mountain and the air is too thin for him to catch his breath, like he's downed a glass of curdled milk.

When he squeezes his eyes shut and tries to drag a memory, any memory, to the surface of his mind, all he gets is the hazy image of Jaemin's face: big, sad eyes and downturned lips.

God, he must have fucked up.  _ Bad _ .

All in all, the week is shit.

When the next week's schedule comes out for the bar, Donghyuck sees that the first night he's on, Jaemin isn't. It makes Donghyuck's stomach twist, and he can't tell if it's relief or disappointment. His second shift, Thursday night, Jaemin's on as well. Donghyuck swallows.

Thursday it is, then.

Except when Thursday rolls around and Donghyuck steps into the dive bar, looks across the room and sees Jaemin on the other side of the bar, drenched in a deep pink light, his throat closes up and all the confidence he'd built for himself suddenly becomes very very small. He looks away before Jaemin can catch his eye, and avoids the bar until he takes a break and has to walk up to the counter to ask for water because he's downed everything in his bottle.

It's Doyoung who serves him, though, not Jaemin.

"Been quiet without you around," Doyoung muses as Donghyuck gulps down half his glass.

"Bet that's a relief," Donghyuck says, trying not to let his eyes slip down to the other end of the bar where Jaemin is mixing a drink for some girl with bright blue hair and a black dress that looks like oil spilling down her body.

Doyoung hums. "Got a bit boring by the end of the week." He's wiping down the bar-top, but he's looking at Donghyuck. "You busy?"

Donghyuck shrugs. He's fairly sure Doyoung had been on shift the night he'd come in and gotten plastered. He's fairly sure Doyoung knows more than he's letting on.

"Well," Doyoung says, and Donghyuck figures it's a lead up to something, to one of those lectures Doyoung always looks like he's barely biting back, but apparently it isn't. All Doyoung says is, "Take care of yourself."

Donghyuck blinks at him. He downs the rest of his water to buy himself some time to think of what he should say back, but even after he's swallowed, all he can manage is a small  _ thanks. _

Doyoung nods, then turns his attention to a new arrival at the bar just to Donghyuck's left. Donghyuck stares down at his empty glass, at the trickle of water running down the side of it. The droplet slips all the way to the bottom and lands on the bar-top. Donghyuck swipes it away with his thumb.

When he looks up again, his head turns to the right of its own accord, towards Jaemin, like he's made up of magnets instead of solid muscle and a candy floss heart. Donghyuck's eyes land on Jaemin, and the girl in the pretty dress is no longer in front of him. Donghyuck's eyes land on Jaemin and Jaemin is already looking right at him.

Their eyes meet and Donghyuck freezes, because Jaemin doesn't readily offer Donghyuck the grin he usually does. An entire beat passes before a small smile plays at Jaemin's lips, but there's apprehension to it, and Donghyuck can tell it's not genuine like he's used to.

Something twists in Donghyuck's stomach, hot and sharp. A knife sinking all the way in to the hilt. He swallows, still caught staring. He tries to smile too, but it feels tight on his face, feels like a lie.

Before he can even think about walking over to Jaemin, apologizing for whatever it is that he'd done a week ago, Jaemin's attention slips away from him. Donghyuck watches as a man walks up to Jaemin's end of the bar, resting his forearms on the counter and grinning a little too sharply at Jaemin, lips moving around words that Donghyuck can't hear over the sound of chatter.

Donghyuck's stomach flips, and he tears his eyes away. His throat feels thick all of a sudden, his mouth somehow dry again. He flags Doyoung for more water, and gulps it down like a man dying of thirst.

He and Jaemin don't speak all night long.

The next time their shifts line up is just two days later. Donghyuck walks in through the door with equal parts determination and nausea swirling in his stomach. This time, he doesn't duck his head before Jaemin can see him arrive, but it doesn't matter, because Jaemin's back is to him. Donghyuck takes a breath, and forces himself to walk right up to where Jaemin is stacking glassware behind the bar.

"Hey," Donghyuck says, hoping the strain in his voice can't be heard over the jukebox turned up to full volume.

Jaemin startles, sets a glass down a little too hard, and Donghyuck flinches. When Jaemin turns around to face him, there's a line of tension between his brows.

"Donghyuck," he says, before falling utterly silent.

Donghyuck lasts all of two impossibly long seconds of nothing but Jaemin staring slightly wide-eyed at him before his composure breaks. "Look," Donghyuck says weakly, "I'm sorry, for whatever I did last week. I don't remember shit after we left here except for like, throwing up a lung and a half, so I don't know what I did, but whatever it was, I'm really sorry. I shouldn't have even put you in that position in the first place- having to take me home, I mean. So I'm sorry. I hope I didn't do anything too terrible." He trails off, biting his lip to keep himself from spewing nonsense just to fill the silence between them.

Jaemin stares at him a moment longer, like he's processing. Then, slowly, he says, "You don't remember? Like... anything?"

Donghyuck bites down on his lip harder, shakes his head. He can't tell if Jaemin is relieved or disappointed, isn't sure why he'd be either.

"Oh," Jaemin says. "Do... do you want to know? What happened?"

Donghyuck hesitates.  _ Does  _ he? "Just... tell me whatever I did to you," he says finally, "so I can apologize properly."

This time,  _ Jaemin  _ hesitates. "You..." he lets out a breath. "You didn't do anything, really. Just cursed me out when I cut you off and scared me half to death when you collapsed on the sidewalk." Jaemin swallows. "That's it."

Donghyuck scrubs a hand down his face. "I think I remember that. God, I am sorry. I hope you know I didn't mean any of the shit I said. I was just. It was just a hard day. I shouldn't have taken it out on you. We're just... friends. Not even old friends or anything. You shouldn't have to deal with that shit."

Jaemin smiles, that same, tight looking smile Donghyuck had felt tug at his own cheeks two nights ago. "It's fine," Jaemin tells him. "Just don’t do anything like that again, all right? You could really get sick or hurt yourself. No heartbreak is worth a fucked up liver or a cracked skull. I know it sucks, like, royally, but ruining yourself won't fix anything."

At this, something flickers at the back of Donghyuck's mind. A wisp of memory with just enough life breathed into it for him to get a glimpse of it. A slow horror dawns over him, and it must spread across his face, because he sees something in Jaemin's change as well, a hint of something almost like panic passing through his eyes.

"Did-" Donghyuck starts, only to be cut off by Taeil, emerging from the employee back room to call him over. Donghyuck tears his eyes away from Jaemin to signal to Taeil that he'll be right there. He looks back to Jaemin, and he looks like he's fighting to keep his eyes on Donghyuck. "Can we talk later?"

Jaemin nods curtly, and instead of relief, Donghyuck's stomach twists with apprehension. Nevertheless, he turns away, leaves Jaemin to his work, and makes his way over to the back room to see what Taeil had wanted him for.

The night drags on, and Donghyuck feels himself slowly being pulled in too many different directions of shame to stay whole, to keep himself from snapping into a dozen little pieces, because what Taeil had wanted was to gently chew Donghyuck out for getting absolutely shit-faced at his place of work. Apparently, being off the clock didn't give him a pass to make an ass of himself in front of customers who might recognize him another day. There's no punishment this time, but Taeil  _ would like it very much if he keeps the rest of his drunken escapades to a different haunt, thank you very much _ .

Donghyuck apologizes profusely, of course, and leaves the room red-faced and mortified. He's lucky Taeil has a soft spot for him, and that he has a history of being a good employee (despite his tendencies to poke and prod at coworkers to see whether they have a sense of humor or a nasty bite) otherwise he'd be in much worse shape now, he knows.

His voice sounds dull when he sings. It's still good, still all the notes he's meant to hit, but it's not the same, and he hates it. There's no honey dripping from his words, none of the usual sparkle that makes him special. He hates it, but he doesn't know how to get rid of the tightness in his throat, the shame clogging his lungs. He doesn't know how to stop glancing in Jaemin's direction and remembering the tight look on his face.

When he finally finishes, one song shorter than what he usually does on nights like these, he flees the poor excuse for a stage like he's honestly scared of it, and that alone makes his hands clench, because this isn't who he  _ is.  _ He doesn't like feeling like this. He doesn't want to have to confront Jaemin a second time, but he can't take another minute of this stale air in his lungs and the weight of not knowing.

Donghyuck slides onto a stool in front of Jaemin, and Jaemin passes him a glass of water. It's almost normal.

"Taeil yelled at me for last weekend," Donghyuck says, lips just shy of meeting the rim of his glass.

"Did he really?" Jaemin asks. "Or did he just give you a disappointed look and a talking-to because he adores you."

Donghyuck feels a tentative smile bloom across his face. He runs his tongue along his lower lip to catch the bit of water that slips out after he swallows. Jaemin watches.

"It felt like he was yelling at me," Donghyuck says.

"Sorry," Jaemin says. "If I'd cut you off sooner-"

Donghyuck shakes his head, reaches out to lay a hand on top of Jaemin's before he can think not to. "I know you have your whole bartender oath thing, but really, it's not your fault. It's on me."

Jaemin looks down at their hands and swallows. He meets Donghyuck's eyes again, and looks like there's something he wants to say. Donghyuck waits, but Jaemin doesn't speak. He doesn't even move.

Donghyuck sighs. "Did-" he grimaces, and Jaemin's face goes blank like he's wiped it clean "-did I say anything?" Donghyuck asks. "After you brought me home?"

Jaemin exhales. His lashes look impossibly long, casting shadows down his cheeks, bathed in pink light. "You told me about... why you were drinking."

Donghyuck lets his eyes fall shut. "Did I tell you everything?"

"I think so," Jaemin says softly. "It was hard to follow. You weren't... I mean, you weren't exactly coherent. But I think I got most of it, yeah."

Donghyuck opens his eyes again to find Jaemin looking at him with a mix of sympathy and something Donghyuck can't quite place. "Never serve me alcohol again," he says, almost serious. "I can't believe I did that."

Jaemin purses his lips _ ,  _ but doesn't say anything.

Silence hangs between them, and then: "Thank you," Donghyuck says softly. "I know you didn't have to do any of that stuff for me, but thank you." He looks away. "I won't make you do it again, don't worry. I know that's not what this is about."  _ This  _ meaning  _ them _ . Their... whatever they have.

Occasional coworkers. Benefits with friendship tacked on after the fact.

"It's-" Jaemin starts, before pausing. Donghyuck looks back to him in time to see him look away. "I don't mind. What are friends for, right?"

Donghyuck lets his eyes rake over Jaemin's face, trying to figure out why he looks like he's got a sour candy stuck in his mouth even though his words sound genuine. Then, as if he can feel Donghyuck's gaze on him (he probably can- Donghyuck's not being subtle) Jaemin's face turns carefully blank again. He meets Donghyuck's eyes, slips his hand out from under Donghyuck's palm.

"I have to-" he nods his head to the patrons seated between his end of the bar and Doyoung's nursing near empty glasses.

"Right," Donghyuck says. He pulls his hands off the counter and folds them in his lap. "Get your tips."

Jaemin offers him a small smile, and Donghyuck hopes it's just a trick of the light- the way it looks like it doesn't reach his eyes. And then Jaemin's gone, and Donghyuck is alone again.

They stop having sex.

It's not that Donghyuck doesn't want to - god knows Jaemin has a body that doesn't quit and knows how to use it, and Donghyuck really  _ likes  _ sleeping with him - but he doesn't think that feeling is mutual any longer.

There's no conversation about it, no real communication, but Donghyuck doesn't want to get turned down if he asks, which is what it, more and more, now, feels like Jaemin will do. So Donghyuck stops waiting around until the end of Jaemin's shifts in an attempt to avoid what feels like the inevitable.

Another crash and burn. Donghyuck pretends it doesn't hurt.

They still talk at the bar, and, slowly, the stilted-air that had surrounded them that first week back is worn down by persistence until it's just a memory. But still, there's something different about it all. Donghyuck tries not to think too hard about it.

April comes, a slight relief to the chill that had clung stubbornly to the air throughout March.

A library volunteer named Lucy, two years Donghyuck's junior, working for school credits, comes down with a virus of some sort. Four days later, Donghyuck catches something too.

He's out from the library for a week, confined to his apartment, and more specifically, his bed. He barely eats, lives off of water and toast. He only showers three times, much to his own dismay. He loses his voice.

When the time comes that he's no longer contagious, and is ready to go back to work, it's only to the library. He clears it all up with Taeil (what's the point in bringing him in if he can't do the one thing he's there for?) and doesn't set foot in the bar until half of April is already gone.

The first time he goes back, he can tell something is different. Can tell he was gone too long. He's just on the edge of being late, so he gets right to business, settling down at the piano because his voice is better now, but still not amazing. He's not sick anymore, just rusted. Doesn’t want to give a mediocre act.

As he flexes his fingers and picks the pieces for this first round of play, his eyes betray him by drifting across the room to land at the bar. He sees Jaemin leaning on the bar-top, engrossed in conversation with someone. He's laughing, angled towards them and utterly focused. Donghyuck wants to look away, but he can't seem to tear his eyes off the smile on Jaemin's face. It looks genuine, wider and brighter than any of the ones he's directed at Donghyuck recently. It makes something hot and vicious cut through Donghyuck.

The lights over the bar are a deep blue this week, and Jaemin looks like he's submerged in ocean waves, but Donghyuck can't stop seeing him in shades of green. 

The song playing on the jukebox sputters to an end, and the attention of patrons falls to Donghyuck. At least a dozen expectant faces.

Donghyuck finally forces himself to look away from Jaemin. He coughs into his elbow, tearing the rust free from his throat. He switches songs last minute, right before he starts to play. His fingers press into the keys, and music fills the room again.

When he sings, he can hear  _ something  _ in his voice that he pretends not to. Emotion that matches the music a little too well.

At the end of his set, a girl who looks barely old enough to be here, if even that, approaches him cautiously before he can make it to the bar to get a refill for his water.

"You were really good," the girl says earnestly, if a little shy. She has short hair, hitting just past her jaw, and it's tucked back behind her ears. Her eyes are so wide, her cheeks so round and pink, that Donghyuck thinks she looks like she came right out of the pages of a manhwa. She’s cute in the way small, fluffy animals are.

He smiles, because he's polite, and her compliment seems so sincere that he can't help it anyway. "Thanks," he says.

"Do you always play here?" Manwha-girl asks, blinking up at him. And oh, she's  _ short _ .

"Sometimes," Donghyuck answers. He looks at the girl for a moment, trying to figure out if it's worth asking whether she's actually old enough for a bar like this, fine if you come for the music, but a little less so if you come for the cheap drinks. "Are you... um. I don't mean to be rude, but are you old enough to be here?"

To his relief, the girl laughs. She waves a hand over her head, at the difference between their heights. "I get that a lot." She pulls an ID card out of the purse slung across her chest, holding it up for him to see.  _ Kang Soeun _ . She's only a year younger than Donghyuck.

Donghyuck laughs too, rubbing the back of his neck. "Sorry," he says sheepishly.

She shrugs, brushing it off easily. She tucks her ID back into her purse. "Well, I hope you keep playing," she says. "I don't think I've ever gotten piano music at a bar like this before. It was really nice. And your voice is great, seriously."

Donghyuck feels himself flush, pleased. "Thanks," he says again, not sure what else there is to say. "I'm glad you liked it. There's another guy who plays piano here sometimes too. He's better than I am. Maybe you'll catch him next time."

"Maybe," Soeun says easily, but her cheeks seem rosier than before. "I'd be happy to hear you again too, though."

Donghyuck opens his mouth, not sure what he's going to say but sure that he's supposed to say  _ something _ , when he's saved by the sound of another girl calling Soeun over, back to their table.

Soeun looks over his shoulder, back to her friend, and giggles, almost nervously. "It was nice talking," she says in lieu of goodbye.

All Donghyuck manages is a faint  _ yeah,  _ before she's hurrying away, still giggling, and the conversation is over almost just as quickly as it had begun.

Donghyuck stands there, a bit dazed for a moment, still trying to process, before he remembers his parched throat and his original trajectory towards the bar. He shakes his head and starts moving again.

He gets all of two steps closer to the bar before looking Doyoung's direction, finding him busy with an older looking man speaking animatedly about god knows what, but clearly stressing Doyoung out with the way he's gesticulating with a half-full glass in one of his hands. So, Donghyuck realizes, he needs to look to Jaemin's end of the bar again for the first time since seeing him laughing with someone else.

There's a small pit of nerves in Donghyuck's stomach at the thought, except when he finally does it - turns to let his eyes find Jaemin like they've been itching to for ages now - he finds Jaemin already looking at him.

It might be the lighting, but there's something strange in Jaemin's eyes. As Donghyuck gets closer, he realizes it's something heavy, something... oh.

Donghyuck doesn't get his water at the bar. He's barely reached it before Jaemin's hand is closing around his wrist and he's calling to Doyoung that he's going on break for a few minutes. They barely even wait for an acknowledgement before Jaemin is dragging Donghyuck into the bathroom and pushing him into a stall, pressing him against the wall and kissing him.

The thing is, they've kissed so many times before Donghyuck has lost count, but  _ this _ ? This is different.

Maybe it's because it's been so long since they've done anything, but Jaemin is pressing against him, licking into his mouth with a kind of hunger that makes Donghyuck as dizzy as he'd been two weeks earlier, sick out of his mind and barely able to walk across his room. This kind of dizziness is exciting, though, makes him feel like he's been doused in kerosene and set ablaze.

Jaemin's hands are hot on his skin, slipping under his shirt to grip at his hips, fingers pressing in hard enough that Donghyuck thinks he'll feel the imprints all night long. Donghyuck's hands find Jaemin's shoulders and he clings on to ground himself, like he'll be lost if he lets go now.

Usually, there's a strong streak of care in the way Jaemin kisses, touches Donghyuck, but now - although it's still there - it's nearly overpowered by the force of the absolute  _ want  _ in all of Jaemin's body, in the way he bites down on Donghyuck's lip to draw a sharp gasp out of him, in this incredible thing he does with his tongue that makes Donghyuck's knees buckle and his hands clench around Jaemin's shoulders.

When Jaemin pulls back just enough to breathe, his chest is heaving. Donghyuck's heart is skipping so fast in his chest he thinks it might burst right out of him.

"My shift ends at ten," Jaemin gasps against Donghyuck's lips. "Do you want to-"

Jaemin doesn't even finish the question before Donghyuck answers with a breathless  _ yes _ , and seals their lips together again.

It's much the same as the first time - leaving the bathroom together with flushed, burning skin - but now there's an undercurrent of electricity, a kind of livewire that seems to reach across the bar and link them together as the rest of the night carries on. Every time their eyes meet, Donghyuck feels lightning crash through him, again and again until he's finally finished for the night and there are only a few minutes left until Jaemin's shift ends too.

It's still the same when they leave, hands wound tightly together, dragging each other through the cool air in the direction of Jaemin's apartment. Too many times, Donghyuck has to hold himself back from kissing Jaemin right there on the side of the road. He wants this, wants  _ Jaemin _ so badly it feels impossible to wait until they make it all the way to his place. It's like the very first night they'd done this, Donghyuck so desperate to get his hands on Jaemin and have Jaemin's hands on him in turn, that the trip back from the bar takes longer than it should.

Except this time Donghyuck isn't running away from anything, grabbing onto the first thing that will give him an escape. He's not running away, but  _ towards _ . Towards Jaemin, and the promise of his touch. 

This time Donghyuck doesn't just want a distraction, he wants Jaemin. 

It makes him feel like he's caught fire. The flames don't burn, though, just heat him up until he's sweating and the only thing in the world that he can see is Jaemin in front of him, fire reflected in his eyes.

They make it back to Jaemin’s apartment and the door has barely slammed shut behind them when Donghyuck grabs Jaemin by the shoulders and drags him in for a searing kiss. Jaemin kisses back with the same urgency, weeks worth of pent-up want poured into every movement. He backs Donghyuck into the wall and fits his thigh between Donghyuck’s legs, pushing up against him and drawing a low groan out of him. Jaemin swallows the breath easily. 

Donghyuck’s hands rake down Jaemin’s body, knocking aside his light jacket and leaving him in just his black work shirt and slacks. He runs his hands back up, under cottony material, to map the skin of Jaemin’s back, muscles tensed as he holds Donghyuck with the kind of intensity that’s born from too much distance and time apart. Jaemin holds him like he doesn’t ever want to let him go again. It makes Donghyuck dizzy. Dizzy and hungry. 

Jaemin whines when Donghyuck fists his hands at the bottom hem of his shirt and forces Jaemin to break the kiss so Donghyuck can pull the shirt over his head. Jaemin’s hair is mussed and wild, his face flushed, his lips dark and shiny, and he looks at Donghyuck like a starving man. Donghyuck gets dizzier and hungrier. 

Jaemin makes quick work of Donghyuck’s shirt after that, fingers running up his sides and then tangling in his hair. God knows how long it takes them to even get past the entryway, they’re so busy kissing right there by the door, trying to make up for lost time. Donghyuck can’t even wonder if he’d been reading the signs all wrong and depriving Jaemin of something he wanted all this time, or whether something had changed earlier in the night. Donghyuck can hardly think about anything that isn’t Jaemin’s tongue like hot syrup in his mouth, Jaemin’s chest pressed up against his, Jaemin’s thigh between his legs. 

It finally snaps when Jaemin’s lips move to Donghyuck’s jaw, down to the sensitive spot on his neck that Jaemin loves to suck purple and blue, and Donghyuck gasps, high-strung and strangled.  _ “Jaemin.”  _

Jaemin’s teeth graze against his throat and he tightens his grip on Donghyuck’s hips, fingers slipped under the waistband of his jeans. Donghyuck’s breath hitches and then Jaemin bites, not enough to hurt, but enough to send a flare of heat crashing through Donghyuck’s body like a breaker box exploding. 

Donghyuck gasps again, arching up against Jaemin.  _ “I want you,”  _ he says, and he already sounds wrecked. 

That’s all it takes. The next thing Donghyuck knows, Jaemin’s pulled back enough to let Donghyuck push away from the wall, and then they’re stumbling backwards across the floor until the backs of Donghyuck’s legs hit Jaemin’s mattress and they tumble onto it together. In an instant, the cleanly made bed turns into a mess of tangled limbs and twisted sheets. Donghyuck gets Jaemin under him long enough to undo the button of his black uniform pants and tug them down his legs before Jaemin rolls them over and unzips Donghyuck’s jeans and helps him shimmy out of them so they can be discarded on the floor like everything else. 

Jaemin hovers over Donghyuck, eyes dark and pupils blown wide, admiring him for a drawn out moment. “You’re incredible,” he breathes, before kissing him again. 

Donghyuck runs his hands over Jaemin’s back, blunt ends of his nails scraping against the skin, against the indents of Jaemin’s muscles. Jaemin groans, rolling his hips against Donghyuck’s and chasing coherent thought right out of Donghyuck’s head.

_ “Jaemin,”  _ he gasps again, breathless. “I swear to-”

Jaemin cuts him off with another kiss, with another roll of his hips.  _ Okay _ , he mouths into Donghyuck’s lips. When he kisses Donghyuck again, it feels like a promise.

It's like time slows down the moment they break apart so Jaemin can scramble for the lube and condoms stored just to the left of his bed. Donghyuck shuffles up the mattress to rest his head on one of Jaemin's pillows, and the smell of Jaemin's conditioner washes over him, flooding his senses. He drags in a deep breath as Jaemin re-situates himself between his legs, hands rubbing up and down his thighs in a way that's equal parts soothing and electrifying.

Everything starts moving in slow motion: Jaemin's fingers trailing higher and higher up Donghyuck's thighs, Jaemin's breathing- Donghyuck's too. Everything slows down but Donghyuck's thumping heart.

All the wild urgency from their kisses thickens and settles, until there's just the heavy want lying over the both of them, and Jaemin, taking his time. He scatters kisses all over the insides of Donghyuck's thighs, some sweet and some more teeth than lips. He works Donghyuck open slowly, carefully, and it's almost maddening, but he doesn't seem to be doing it to rile Donghyuck up this time, so Donghyuck lets him, lets the pressure build at an achingly slow pace until he finally can't stand it any longer.

Somehow, Jaemin remains steady. How he manages not to snap like every last fraying nerve in Donghyuck's body is beyond him. Jaemin pushes into Donghyuck, and while he waits for the go-ahead, folds his body over Donghyuck and kisses down his neck, the soft press of his lips ghosting over all the bruises already blooming in Donghyuck's skin like spring flowers.

When Donghyuck finally digs his fingers into Jaemin's biceps and tells him to move, to do anything, he listens, but at the same infuriating speed. He rocks against Donghyuck almost tenderly, almost sweet if not for the fact that it drives Donghyuck up the wall, makes him want more and more and  _ more. _

Maybe that's the point.

It's not until Donghyuck drags Jaemin in for another messy, burning kiss, and practically begs him to put those ridiculous muscles to work before he loses his fucking mind, that Jaemin loosens his grips on the reins he's been holding.

At some point, he manages to get one of Donghyuck's hands in his own, and he grips so tightly that Donghyuck starts to lose feeling in his fingers. He doesn't care though, because he's so caught up in the heat and tension winding in his gut like a bowstring about to snap, that Donghyuck is losing feeling  _ everywhere  _ but where Jaemin's body meets his and drives him wild.

Donghyuck gets so caught chasing the feeling that he never stops to think that this time is completely different from all the others, that he can tell something's changed, intensified. Gotten even better than before. All he knows is that it's good, that it's  _ great _ , and as much as he'd gotten on Jaemin about speeding it up, he doesn't want it to end.

It does, of course, but it ends in fireworks across Donghyuck's skin and every limb in his body turning into honey, sweet and liquid as he melts into Jaemin's bedsheets and Jaemin slumps into his side, shaking arms and heaving chest.

For a few minutes, there's nothing but the sound of their heavy breathing, and the sound of Donghyuck's heartbeat pounding like a drum in his ears, his pulse so hard he thinks he can feel it in his neck.

When they come down from the high, Donghyuck rolls his head to the side to see Jaemin in profile. His face is shining with sweat, color high in his cheeks. His eyes are shut, so Donghyuck just looks and looks, marveling at how handsome he is even sweaty and spent.

Without thinking, Donghyuck lifts his hand to brush his fingers against Jaemin's arm, the inside of his wrist. Jaemin opens his eyes slowly, shifting and turning just slightly so he can meet Donghyuck's gaze head on. Donghyuck threads their fingers together, uncaring of how dirty their hands both are. Jaemin smiles, so warm and genuine that Donghyuck feels something  _ thunk  _ in his chest.

Jaemin's lips part, and for a moment, nothing comes out, but then: "I missed you," he whispers.

The confession settles over Donghyuck like warm rainfall in the springtime. He finds himself smiling too, soft and safe in the afterglow. "I missed you too," he says, words hushed but truer than he'd realized.

Jaemin smiles wider, light dancing in his eyes. It's no longer the kind of raging fire Donghyuck knows he could step into and somehow still walk out of alive, but something gentle. It's candlelight in the dark. Donghyuck shifts closer and presses a chaste kiss to Jaemin's mouth, just because he can. Just because he wants to.

They lie like that longer than they should, what with the way the sweat is drying cold and sticky on their skin, but Donghyuck can't find it in himself to move or look away, and it seems like Jaemin feels the same.

Finally, though, Donghyuck starts to shiver - just the faintest tremble of his arms and legs at first - but Jaemin notices right away. He leans in to kiss Donghyuck once, short and light, and then sits up and stumbles off the bed.

"Hey," Donghyuck calls after him, and Jaemin freezes, turning to look at him again.

"Yeah?"

Donghyuck hesitates, brain finally catching up to his mouth. He could just say something simple and let Jaemin do what he wants, but the glowing feeling from sleeping with Jaemin again after so long is persistent tonight, and it softens his trepidation. "Do you want a shower?" Donghyuck asks.

Jaemin blinks. His face does something complicated, and Donghyuck forces himself not to second guess until he knows for sure what the looks flickering across Jaemin's features mean. "You want a shower?" Jaemin asks finally.

Donghyuck chews on his bottom lip. Nods.

The slideshow of expressions passing over Jaemin's face settles into a tentative smile. He walks two steps back to the bed and holds out a hand for Donghyuck in silent answer. Donghyuck feels an almost _ shy _ smile mirrored on his own lips, and takes Jaemin's hand again, pushing himself forward even as Jaemin pulls. He nearly steps on Jaemin's feet as he stands up from the bed, but dodges at the last second - wisps of his motor control coming back to him right as he needs it.

Jaemin laughs lightly, still holding Donghyuck's hand, and as he leans forward to knock their shoulders together, nearly his whole chest presses into Donghyuck. They're both sweaty and sticky and it shouldn't feel nice, but Jaemin is warm, so against reason, Donghyuck enjoys the feeling.

"Come on," Jaemin says, giving Donghyuck's hand a small tug as he steps in the direction of his bathroom again. Donghyuck's still a bit unsteady on his legs, but he follows closely after Jaemin, and with Jaemin holding onto him as carefully as he is, Donghyuck knows that even if he stumbles or falls, he doesn't have to worry about getting hurt.

The shower is small, clearly meant for just one person, but they squeeze in together and make it work. For the most part, Donghyuck just leans his back against the smooth, cool wall, and lets half the stream of water splash against his skin while Jaemin stands directly under it and lathers shampoo through his sweat soaked hair, rinses it out, and then combs in conditioner.

"You just come to enjoy the view?" Jaemin asks as he scrubs at his skin with a white bar of soap.

Donghyuck reaches out to trail his fingers down Jaemin's side, smile tugging at his lips when Jaemin flinches and giggles because he's awfully ticklish after the tension and euphoria fades. "Maybe," Donghyuck says, but he holds out a hand for the soap bar when Jaemin seems to be done foaming all the sweat from his skin.

Instead of handing him the soap, Jaemin takes his hand and pulls him closer, stepping to the side just enough to let Donghyuck get the sweet spot right under the shower head. "You can't get properly clean if you don't get wet first," he chides without heat.

“Mm,” Donghyuck hums. The water is so nice and warm on his tired muscles that it soothes away any retort he might’ve lobbed back at Jaemin. “Just past me the soap, smart guy.” 

Jaemin does, and Donghyuck spends the next few minutes rubbing down his arms, stomach, legs, and feeling the small bliss of clean skin slowly spread over him. Water streams down his shoulders, wrapping around him like a barrier to keep the soft, happy bubble of warmth in his chest intact a little while longer. He twists his arm to try and reach his back to soap it down as well, but before he can, he feels Jaemin step closer again, close his hand around Donghyuck’s. 

“Let me,” he offers, letting Donghyuck’s hand go again to hold out an open palm. 

“Really?” Donghyuck asks, and it if it comes out breathier than he intends, he blames it on the fatigue starting to set in.

Jaemin nods. “I’ve got a better angle anyway. And I promise I won’t tickle you,” he teases.

Donghyuck huffs out a light laugh. He slides the soap bar into Jaemin’s hand, and they shuffle around so Donghyuck’s front is in the steady stream of the shower, and Jaemin is at his back, rubbing the bar between his hands to suds them up. Donghyuck’s not exactly sure what he expects, hasn’t had help bathing since he broke his leg crashing his bike when he was ten and his mom had to give him sponge baths for nearly a month. It’s been a long, long time since then. So it takes Donghyuck by surprise when Jaemin’s hands settle gently on his back, smooth and silky from the soap, and he fans out his fingers and brushes all along the expanse of skin Donghyuck can never quite reach. 

Jaemin’s palms are bigger than Donghyuck’s - he knows from many comparisons - so it shouldn't take him very long to get the job done, but it seems like his hands linger. There must be something with him tonight, something slowing his hands and filling each touch with more care than before, but Donghyuck is tired, still holding onto the floaty feeling that the night has left him with, so he doesn’t think too hard about it. 

As Jaemin maps Donghyuck’s back, rubbing circles and spiralling waves into his skin, Donghyuck lets his eyes fall shut, and he focuses on nothing but the water running down his front and the light press of Jaemin’s fingers into his back. There’s half a smart-aleck comment on the tip of his tongue about how long it’s taking Jaemin to do something so simple, but it never gets past his lips, because Donghyuck isn’t sure he’s really in any rush for Jaemin to stop. It feels nice to have Jaemin touch him this way- no heat or desire or greed, just a delicate brush of skin on skin, just a gentle whisper of care. 

Realistically, Donghyuck knows it can’t be all that long before Jaemin finally decides his work is done, but until Jaemin’s hands finally settle on Donghyuck’s biceps and he murmurs,  _ that should do the trick _ , so lowly that Donghyuck almost doesn’t hear over the sound of running water, the moment feels like it stretches forever. A pocket of time just for them, just for Donghyuck to tuck away safely in the back of his mind, a yellow-gold memory to contrast too many blues and reds and grays. 

Donghyuck spins slowly to get his back under the water, and finds that Jaemin doesn’t move at all, finds himself looking right at Jaemin as the soap washes from his skin and disappears down the drain. There’s a soft, contemplative look on Jaemin’s face, and a kind of openness in his eyes that Donghyuck hasn’t seen in a long while. Donghyuck half expects him to say something - he looks like he wants to - but his lips stay together. Donghyuck finds he doesn’t mind, because Jaemin’s hands are still on his arms, and he has a feeling he’ll hear whatever it is Jaemin wants to say sooner or later. He has all the time in the world to wait.

When they fall back into bed - Donghyuck in one of Jaemin's large sleep shirts and Jaemin in a pair of patterned shorts that look so cutesy on him Donghyuck honest to god giggles at the sight - Jaemin wraps his arms around Donghyuck and their legs tangle together in the sheets.

It's quiet, just the sound of their breathing. It's nice.

Donghyuck falls asleep faster than he does in his own bed. 

Like their night together has mended whatever had broken between them after Donghyuck's drunken meltdown, things essentially go back to how they'd been before. Nights are once again made up of kisses gifted back and forth in the bathroom, in the street, in the safety of Jaemin's room. And it's true that it's not quite the same as the first time around - feels like there's something added to it, some secret ingredient Donghyuck hasn't been able to put his finger on - but everything is better, so he doesn't worry himself thinking about it. Just enjoys it, enjoys Jaemin. 

That's enough.

April tumbles into May like Donghyuck and Jaemin tumble into bed together- easy and excited, without delay. 

Donghyuck works his usual hours at the library, appreciates Renjun's presence more than ever after his sick leave, and eats lunches with him in the staff rooms, or, if it's a slow day, under the skylight on the top floor, at the heart of the building. Nights, Donghyuck goes to the dive bar, to sing or play the piano, or just to see his friends (he thinks that's what they've all become). 

Sometimes when Donghyuck drops by, Doyoung shares snacks with him, and now Donghyuck can see past the tight-lipped look he sometimes gets, all the way to the deep empathy he has for everyone around him that drives him to judge in the first place. It's the same  _ you could be doing better than this  _ look that he'd given Donghyuck the first night he'd showed up at the bar, betrays an emotional intelligence Donghyuck privately admires.

Usually, though, when he's not scheduled, Donghyuck just pulls up a stool at Jaemin's end of the counter and stays there, sometimes for hours, until his shifts end. 

He explains it away with the familiarity- Jaemin tolerates his chatter and pestering most days, so of course Donghyuck seeks him out. The days Jaemin looks too worn down, too tired of the bustle of dozens of people all around him to put up with any more nonsense, though, Donghyuck still sits near him, silent, sipping water and watching the crowds.

The nights Jaemin is clearly exhausted, Donghyuck holds his hand loosely on the way to the bathroom, kisses him softly, putting in all the work of spilling sweetness back into him like pouring liquid sugar past parted lips. When they go home together those nights, they touch gently, often nothing more than kissing until Jaemin breaks away to yawn and they fall into quiet laughter and turn in for bed, Donghyuck's arm thrown over Jaemin's waist, keeping him close. 

Though the days grow steadily warmer - not quite summer yet, though it's on the way - too many times to count, Jaemin's room feels like he's cranked up the winter heating to full blast, because Jaemin isn't always tired, and Donghyuck knows how to do much more than just kiss sweetly. Donghyuck sweats as much in Jaemin's bed as he's sure he will come his summer afternoon walks home from work, forty minutes under the blazing sun. 

Of course, there's no sun in Jaemin's room, but there is Jaemin, and Donghyuck sees him more and more like something made of warmth and light, someone who can heat Donghyuck up without ever burning him. 

It's all so nice, so easy, that Donghyuck never thinks to question why everything's gotten so much better, never dares pull back the curtain to see what's going on underneath the way Jaemin touches him, the way he touches Jaemin right back. Donghyuck chalks it all up to the weather turning for the better, to the simple act of time healing even the wounds he'd thought would remain open and bitter forever. 

After spending the year before on high alert, always thinking three steps ahead and looking over his shoulder, he's more than happy to finally not have to do anything but live day by day, do what he wants, chase happiness again and again into Jaemin's apartment without a care.

He should have known something would happen to shake him up again sooner or later.

Early June, Donghyuck wakes up in Jaemin’s bed to the smell of eggs cooking on the small stovetop of Jaemin’s kitchen. When Donghyuck runs his hands over the sheets, just the last traces of Jaemin’s warmth linger on his side of the bed. Donghyuck sits up in bed, Jaemin’s shirt hanging off his shoulders, and peers across the room. Jaemin isn’t standing at the stove like he probably should be if he’s cooking. 

“Jaemin?” Donghyuck calls, throwing aside the sheet so he can shuffle off the bed. 

For a moment, there’s silence, and then Jaemin’s voice, muffled from the bathroom: “Yeah?”

“Are you burning eggs?” Donghyuck asks, padding across the floor towards the stove to check on the pan. 

“I turned the heat down,” Jaemin answers, “they should be fine.”

Donghyuck peers down into the pan, and Jaemin is right; the eggs, mixed with what must be chopped cabbage, carrot, and green onion, are cooking on a low heat, no danger of burning yet. Looks ready to be flipped, though. “Do you want me to turn it?” Donghyuck calls over the sound of water running in the bathroom.

“Yeah, if you don’t mind. Thanks!”

So Donghyuck does. Even groggy from having just woken up, he has a steady hand here, and it makes him smile.

A minute later, Jaemin emerges from the bathroom, changed and ready for the day. It's Sunday, so Donghyuck doesn't have to go in to the library, but Jaemin's job still calls; he'll have to leave within the half hour to make it there on time. He walks over to Donghyuck and stands by him at the stove.

"Nice flip," he says, looking at the eggs turned cleanly in the pan.

"I'm a master chef," Donghyuck jokes.

"Clearly," Jaemin says, smiling.

Donghyuck knocks their shoulders together and turns his eyes across the room. "Is that pair of jeans I forgot here the other day hiding somewhere?"

"Yeah." Jaemin points at a cloth storage box on the floor near his bed. "Should be in there."

"Thanks," Donghyuck says, getting a hum in response. He walks back to the bed and sinks to his knees, lifting the lid off the box. Inside, he finds the jeans he's looking for, as well as a single sock, two of his shirts, and a necklace he'd taken off before showering a week earlier and forgotten to put back on.

"Wow," he mutters, considering pulling everything out so he can bring it all back to his apartment. He doesn't have a bag to carry it all though, and he figures it's not hurting anyone to leave it here a little longer, so he just fastens the necklace around his throat, and takes stock of the rest of his missing treasures, so he knows where they are and where they'll be the next time he's here.

Donghyuck puts the lid back on the box and stands again, stretching. Jaemin catches his eyes from across the room.

"Were they not there?"

"No, they are, just figured I would wait until I've got my bag to try and bring them back to my place. Not really in the mood to get weird looks from strangers for walking around with an extra pair of jeans hanging off me.” He lets out a small laugh. “Isn’t like I won't be back here or anything."

When Donghyuck falls silent, there's a strange look on Jaemin's face, something Donghyuck can’t quite place.

Donghyuck falters. "I mean... as long as that's okay with you? It's not actually too much trouble if you want me to bring it all back to my place today and get it out of your hair or something."

The look on Jaemin's face clears, settles into a smile Donghyuck's grown to recognize as a genuine one, softer around the edges than what he gives to patrons at the bar. "That's okay," he says easily. "I don't mind at all."

A small puff of air rushes out of Donghyuck's chest and he returns Jaemin's smile, relieved. "Cool. Thanks."

"No problem," Jaemin assures him, still with that soft morning smile tugging at his lips.

"Well, I'm gonna-" Donghyuck gestures towards the bathroom.

Jaemin nods him off, and Donghyuck flicks the bathroom light on, looking at himself in the mirror for half a second before reaching for the spare toothbrush Jaemin keeps for him, and the toothpaste he’d left on the sink.

By the time he's finished in the bathroom and steps into the main room again, Jaemin's putting on his shoes by the door.

"I left your sandwich on the pan, but the heat's off," Jaemin tells him, reaching for the doorknob. "I'll see you tonight."

Warmth rises in Donghyuck's chest, pressing at his ribs like too much laughter. A nice kind of ache. "Thanks," he says. "I'll see you."

Jaemin waves once and then is out the door, leaving Donghyuck in his apartment. Silence settles, calm and peaceful, and Donghyuck walks over to the stool he’s claimed essentially as his own, where his clothes sit waiting for him. He gets dressed and ventures back to the stove, finding a slice of toasted bread folded over a portion of the eggs Jaemin had made earlier. A mini version of the to-go breakfast Jaemin had made for himself.

That warmth in Donghyuck's chest returns, quiet but insistent. He takes a bite of the sandwich, and savors the taste on his tongue. He knows that he's a good cook himself, but there's something about the food Jaemin shares with him that has an extra kick to it. He thinks it must just be the fact that he didn't have to cook all for himself that makes it special.

Three bites into the sandwich, and Donghyuck sets it back down to cross the room again, this time reaching for his phone, charging on Jaemin's bed stand. He opens it to a message from Renjun, something about needing a distinctly extroverted plus one to go to some university event his friend is participating in, and would Donghyuck be interested in that?

Donghyuck shoots Renjun a quick response, asking about the hours, and then makes the mistake of opening his curated news feed. He scrolls past articles about singers he's listened to before, about shows he's watched in his free time, about half a dozen insignificant things, none of which spark his interest enough to bother clicking on them after skimming the titles.

He checks his battery, unplugs his phone, and brings it back towards the stove so he can finish eating. Renjun texts him back with the time for the event, and it ends just before Donghyuck usually gets antsy and heads over to the dive bar the days he’s not on staff, so he agrees to go, makes plans to meet Renjun at one of the bus stops in town so they can head out together. Donghyuck takes a bite of his sandwich and tabs back to the news feed.

It's the very next article that gets him.

Just some shitty tabloid piece - the kind of thing he'd usually scroll right past - but it's got a blurry picture attached to it, and Donghyuck recognizes the faces in it before he even registers the headline. Mark and Jeno, hand in hand, stepping out of a car together.  _ The Lee fiancés looking for their future home?  _ Donghyuck clicks on it before he realizes what he's doing, and then he's looking at a whole slew of shaky photographs of Mark and Jeno walking down a street on the rich side of the city, looking for property their families don't already own. Looking for a home. To share. Because they're getting married in just a few months.

Donghyuck swallows, and bits of egg seem to catch in his throat. The toast feels too dry on his tongue. He tabs away from the gossip site quickly, locking his phone and shoving it in the pocket of his jeans. He forces down the last bite of his sandwich, trying to pretend it doesn't taste like it's gone stale in the last minute, and then forces himself to move towards the door, to stuff his feet into his shoes, to leave the apartment, lock clicking softly behind him.

All day he feels strange. There’s an empty sort of ache taking root beneath his ribs.

He wanders the streets for hours, stops at his apartment briefly for a poor excuse of a meal before catching a bus and meeting Renjun just after lunch. He thinks the company will distract him, but any time silence falls, thoughts of Mark and Jeno creep back into his head. It's strange, to have them so present in his mind again, because he hadn't realized how little he'd been thinking about them recently until they were shoved right into his face again.

Renjun seems to notice something is wrong, because he talks more than usual to fill the gaps in conversation where Donghyuck usually leaps to speak his mind. The event they go to is nice - some sort of collaborative art show with music performances, dances, and physical work - but Donghyuck finds it hard to focus. Renjun points out his friend in at least a third of the dances, but by the time they meet face to face, Donghyuck still doesn't recognize him.

It's like his head isn't with him. Like he's caught in a daze; not exactly hurting, but lost and confused. He feels like a ship bobbing in the sea, drifting out with the tide, no anchor to keep him where he wants to be.

The event ends and Renjun goes to some  _ after _ -event with his friend while Donghyuck waves them off. He walks to the nearest bus stop in silence, waits in silence, rides all the way back to his corner of the city. In the silence, his mind runs wild, louder than ever. The world spins around Donghyuck and he lets it sweep him along.

Donghyuck gets off at the stop closest to the dive bar, and trudges down the street until the familiar sign lit up over the door finally comes into view. Without realizing it, he picks up his pace, and before he knows it, he's pulling the door open and stepping into the neon-lit room.

His eyes skip right to the bar, landing on Jaemin, washed purple by the overhead lights. Donghyuck exhales, like a weight has fallen off his chest. He can breathe. The incessant chatter in his mind falls quiet, like something's turned down the volume almost as low as it'll go. His head clears, clouds parting to blue sky and hints of sunshine.

Jaemin catches sight of him and smiles widely, waving him over. Donghyuck goes to him easily, leaving his trouble at the door. It all seems to matter less now.

There are better things to think of now, to focus on now.

There's Jaemin, right in front of him. Everything else is just details.

On the summer solstice, one of the rare days that Donghyuck and Jaemin both have off work, Jaemin asks Donghyuck to come to a fundraiser for one of the city’s animal shelters with him so he doesn’t have to go alone. He tells Donghyuck that the ticket cost covers an all you can eat buffet, and that people will be bringing their dogs to the event because it takes place at a partially outdoor venue. Donghyuck, unable to think of any better way to spend the day than eating and watching dozens of dogs play in the bright summer sun with Jaemin, agrees easily.

Somehow, though they hadn’t planned on sticking around for the event’s whole run, they end up staying from noon to five in the afternoon. The time passes without Donghyuck even realizing. They find a relatively shady spot to sit in the grass while they eat second helpings of the provided lunch (and then share a plate of thirds) and dog-watch together as the lawn behind the event venue fills with pets of all sizes. They pick favorites, then new favorites when more dogs show up, and despite the heat, Donghyuck leans into Jaemin’s side as he laughs at the stupid names he makes up for the animals. 

When the event finally starts winding down, Donghyuck takes Jaemin’s sweaty hand and hauls him up from the grass, and they throw their soft paper plates in the compost and head out together. Leaving the venue behind and walking under the sun, Donghyuck is glad he’d applied sunscreen liberally before leaving to meet Jaemin, glad there’s something between his skin and a burn. 

They catch a bus back towards their side of the city, and Jaemin lets out a heavy sigh of relief at the cool air inside the bus, reprieve from the heat outside. He lets Donghyuck’s hand go for a moment to wipe the sweat off his palm before holding it out again. Donghyuck does the same, and takes Jaemin’s hand easily. 

“Do you mind if we get off one stop early?” Jaemin asks after a few minutes. “I just remembered I need to get bread at the store.”

“You’re the one with the key,” Donghyuck jokes, although he’s confident in his abilities to pick the lock of Jaemin’s apartment from too many nights of accidentally locking himself out of his own. “I go where you go.”

Jaemin’s face does something too complicated to parse before softening into a smile. “Thanks,” he says, squeezing Donghyuck’s hand. Donghyuck returns the smile with ease.

They get off at the stop nearest the grocer, and while Jaemin finds his bread, Donghyuck snatches up a box of popsicles, and they meet at the checkout, Jaemin looking at the box in Donghyuck’s hands and laughing in surprise. 

“Aren’t you worried those will melt while we walk?”

“Well I’ll be eating at least one of them.” Donghyuck shrugs. “And if life gives me lemons with this… I’ll make lemonade.”

Jaemin visibly stifles another laugh, shakes his head with a grin. “Whatever makes you happy.”

“Is you saying this is a bad idea your way of telling me you don’t want one?”

Jaemin quickly schools his face into something neutral, placing a hand over his heart. “I would never imply something like that. I think this is one of the best ideas you’ve ever had, in fact.”

Donghyuck grins. “Much appreciated.”

“So,” Jaemin says, eyeing the popsicle box.

Donghyuck laughs. “Of course you can have one.”

Jaemin’s face slips right back to one of his usual, bright grins. “Thanks.”

Donghyuck shoves his shoulder lightly, nudging him forward so he can actually buy his damn bread. “Don’t mention it.”

When they make it out of the store, Donghyuck cracks open the box and pulls out a popsicle for himself before passing a second to Jaemin. They both manage to finish them before the sun beats down enough to melt them on the sticks, but although they don’t end up with sticky skin, when Donghyuck looks at Jaemin, he sees that his arms are turning distinctly pink. 

“Looks like you burned today,” Donghyuck says, resting the back of his hand against Jaemin’s forearm to feel the heat of his skin, to contrast the color.

Jaemin looks down at his arms and sighs. “I  _ knew  _ I forgot something this morning. Gonna need to shower when we get back and dig out my aloe.”

Donghyuck draws his hand back and makes a sympathetic sound at the back of his throat. “Hopefully it’s not too bad.”

“Yeah,” Jaemin agrees.

They carry on their way a bit faster than before, trying to get out of the late afternoon sun as soon as possible. When they make it back to Jaemin’s apartment, Donghyuck tosses his popsicles in the small freezer and the bread bag on the counter while Jaemin heads right to the shower, then rifles through the storage under Jaemin’s bathroom sink until he finds a half-empty bottle of aloe tucked in a back corner. He leaves Jaemin to his shower, and heads back to the main room to stick the aloe in the fridge so it’s nice and cool when Jaemin is ready for it. 

Donghyuck washes his hands to rid them of whatever sticky thing he’d accidentally touched under Jaemin’s sink, and then proceeds to sprawl on the floor, scrolling through his phone, letting the sweat dry on his skin, until Jaemin steps out of the bathroom in nothing but a towel.

Donghyuck lets out a low whistle. “You look hot as shit.”

“Yeah,” Jaemin laments, “I guess the burn did end up being kind of bad.”

Donghyuck huffs out a laugh, sitting up. “That wasn’t what I meant. I guess the burn makes you even hotter, though.”

Jaemin throws him a glare without any heat as he heads in search of clean shorts, and Donghyuck walks to the fridge to retrieve the aloe. Donghyuck walks over to Jaemin’s bed and plops himself down onto it. “Come over here, crispy fried,” he calls once Jaemin’s tugged on shorts and re-hung his towel. He lifts the aloe gel in one hand and beckons Jaemin over with the other. 

Jaemin crosses the room again to sit down beside Donghyuck on the bed. “You’re so bossy,” he murmurs, leaning in for a kiss before Donghyuck can protest. 

“And you’re so burned,” Donghyuck says, countering anyway as soon as Jaemin pulls back. He shakes the bottle in his hands once and then dumps a huge dollop of gel into his palm.

Jaemin wordlessly offers one of his bare arms to Donghyuck, and he spreads the gel all over Jaemin’s pink skin, cooling and soothing the burn. Donghyuck repeats the motions, running his hands up and down both Jaemin’s arms until he’s satisfied that he’s coated every inch of skin that had been exposed to the sun. Jaemin is silent while Donghyuck works, and he can feel Jaemin’s eyes on him, but he doesn’t look up until he’s finished. 

“Better?” Donghyuck asks, voice coming out softer than usual.

Jaemin nods, wetting his lips. “Thanks,” he says quietly. 

Donghyuck shrugs, heat climbing in his cheeks at the sincerity in Jaemin’s voice, painted across his face, shining in his eyes. Donghyuck’s about to declare the job done, when he catches a glimpse of pink on the back of Jaemin’s neck. “Oh,” he says, lifting a hand to brush his fingers against the burn line from the collar of Jaemin’s shirt, “looks like you got some sun here, too.”

Before Jaemin can say anything, Donghyuck grabs the aloe bottle again and shifts so he’s sitting behind Jaemin, knees bracketing his hips. He pours just a little bit more gel onto his palm, and spreads it between his hands before settling them on the back of Jaemin’s neck. He feels Jaemin shiver against him. 

“Sorry, is it too cold?” Donghyuck asks, lifting his hands half a centimeter off Jaemin’s skin.

Jaemin shakes his head quickly. “No, it’s fine. Thanks.”

“Okay,” Donghyuck murmurs, hands on Jaemin’s neck again. He massages the gel gently into Jaemin’s skin, feeling Jaemin’s shoulders relax as he works. When the gel dries and Donghyuck is done, his hands linger on Jaemin’s back, warmth seeping through the fine layer of skin. Without thinking, Donghyuck leans in and presses a light kiss to Jaemin’s shoulder, right over a knob of bone. 

It’s a delicate little gesture, and something shakes in Donghyuck’s chest as he pulls away to find Jaemin turning to face him, that same, sparkling look in his eyes as he cups Donghyuck’s jaw and pulls him in for an honest kiss. Jaemin’s lips are cool and chapped and so gentle against Donghyuck’s that he forgets all about how sweaty his own skin is, how he’ll dirty the sheets if he lies down in them, and just lets himself sink back into the mattress as Jaemin turns his body all the way around to meet Donghyuck’s head on. 

Jaemin kisses him with a sweetness that makes Donghyuck melt under him, that makes the shaking in Donghyuck’s chest give way and something crack open beneath his ribs, spilling warmth all through him. Jaemin kisses him, and Donghyuck feels warm to his core, and he kisses Jaemin back.

Of all people, it's Chenle who finally asks.

Donghyuck and Jaemin had met on the street outside the dive bar before heading in together, fingers linked. Jaemin with his drawstring work bag hanging on his back, and Donghyuck with an overnight bag slung over his shoulder. Donghyuck isn't on shift, but he walks into the staff room behind the bar anyway, leaves his bag sitting next to Jaemin's while Jaemin gets his name tag and a cookie from the box Doyoung's left for the workers that night.

Jaemin takes his place behind the bar and starts serving right away, and Donghyuck claims his usual seat on the other side of the bar, eyeing the room, watching for an opening in Doyoung's steady stream of customers so he can ask him how his date the other night had gone. Chenle is the one on live music, so bright piano and his strong voice fill the bar, hanging over the low hum of conversation.

The lights are tinted orange for the night, and the world inside the bar looks lit up by a blazing twilight sun. Donghyuck swirls the water in his glass, and feels perfectly at home.

When the piano music fades out, he knows Chenle is walking up to the bar before he even steals the seat next to Donghyuck and flags Jaemin for a glass of water just like Donghyuck's.

"Loving your playing tonight, Chenle," Jaemin tells him with a fond smile as he passes him a glass.

Chenle grins. "Thanks. You usually don't?"

Jaemin scoffs at the tease, "Can't even compliment this kid.” 

Donghyuck gets the distinct impression that if not for the counter dividing them, Jaemin would reach forward and ruffle Chenle's hair. The thought makes Donghyuck chuckle, and Jaemin's warm smile lands on him for a moment and a half before he's called away to mix up another drink.

Donghyuck grins down at his glass and raises it to his lips, taking a sip. He can feel Chenle's eyes on him. "You fishing for more praise?”

Chenle laughs. "Nah, I know you talk me up to everyone, even when they compliment your playing."

"And what would give you that idea?" Donghyuck questions, though Chenle is, in fact, correct.

"A girl told me a couple weeks ago," Chenle answers with a grin.

Something sparks in Donghyuck's mind. He vaguely remembers Manhwa-girl from all the way back in April, from the same night he'd finally gotten back with Jaemin. He’s seen her around the bar a few times since then too. "Damn. I can’t believe she ratted me out like that. You were never supposed to find out.” He frowns for effect, but with the way Chenle laughs, it’s clear he can tell Donghyuck is just messing with him. 

"Anyway-" Chenle takes a long drink of water, casts his eyes down the bar towards Doyoung and Jaemin, before looking back at Donghyuck "-you and Jaemin, huh?"

Donghyuck feels heat prickle at his cheeks. He lifts his glass to his lips so he doesn't have to speak right away. "What about me and Jaemin?"

Chenle levels him with an unimpressed look, and Donghyuck expects to hear something like  _ you two have been fucking for months, haven’t you?  _ What Chenle says instead is: "You're dating?"

Donghyuck nearly chokes on his drink. He slaps his chest and splutters. “What gives you  _ that  _ impression?”

Chenle stares at him like he’s asked why he thinks the sky is blue. “I don’t know, maybe the fact that I have eyes?”

Donghyuck tries very hard not to choke again, this time on nothing but the air in his lungs. “Very specific,” he says, pretending his voice doesn’t come out strained. “You’ve completely convinced me you know what you’re talking about.”

Chenle downs the rest of his water in one go and flags Jaemin for a refill. Jaemin serves him with that same endeared and mildly irritated smile -  _ you know I have paying,  _ tipping  _ customers too, right?  _ \- but when his gaze slips over to Donghyuck, the smile softens, light dances in his eyes. Donghyuck can’t help but return the look. It only lasts for a second or two before Jaemin heads back to the small group of middle aged women a few paces to the left, but it’s enough for Donghyuck to feel heat creep over his skin. 

Chenle traces a finger along the edge of his glass and makes a point of curling his lips down in feigned disgust. “I’m talking about  _ that _ ,” he says simply.

“That’s called a smile, Chenle. It’s a common courtesy.” Donghyuck says around the tightening feeling in his chest.

“Uh-huh,” Chenle says, not swayed in the slightest. “Whatever you say, man.” Despite the unconvinced look on his face, Chenle doesn’t press the subject, instead switches gears easily into recounting some story about a bird he saw terrorizing people in the street earlier. 

Though he doesn’t mention it again, his question doesn’t leave Donghyuck’s mind.  _ You and Jaemin- you’re dating.  _ It hadn’t even really been a question, just a statement. The thought makes Donghyuck antsy, jittery. He can’t sit still, bounces his leg on the stool and gets up to walk laps around the bar as soon as Chenle leaves to play the piano again. As much as Donghyuck tries not to think about it, his thoughts swing back to it every time he tries to focus on something else, like the idea of dating Jaemin is so magnetic he can’t help but be drawn in by it. 

It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? They’re not dating. Of course they’re not dating. They’ve never talked about that. They’re just… 

Donghyuck looks across the bar, sees Jaemin standing near Doyoung, chatting with him while he cuts garnishes. Jaemin, lips quirked at whatever Doyoung’s saying, brows furrowed in concentration as he slices oranges. Donghyuck feels himself calm at the sight. 

This he knows. This is familiar, warm, safe. This brings him back from the edge of uncertainty. 

This is a flicker of recognition.

Donghyuck lets out a breath, crosses the floor and takes his seat at the bar again. When he looks at Jaemin, everything else seems farther away, quieter. When he looks at Jaemin, Jaemin is all he sees. The messy swirling of doubt in his head fades, quelled. 

The flicker grows to a flame, burning bright in Donghyuck’s heart.

Jaemin catches his eye, and he smiles.

They go back to Jaemin’s apartment. The route is almost more familiar than the one to Donghyuck’s own apartment. 

There’s no rush, just Jaemin holding Donghyuck’s hand, swinging between them as they walk. Third floor, the door to Jaemin’s room swings open and Donghyuck toes off his shoes like he’s done hundreds of times before. There’s a spot carved out for them now, right next to Jaemin’s.

“You thirsty?” Jaemin asks as he heads for the fridge. “I still have some of that iced tea mix you like.”

“I’m okay,” Donghyuck says.

Jaemin hums in response, and Donghyuck tears his eyes away from their neatly placed shoes. He reaches Jaemin at the fridge in time to watch him pour the tea into a cheap, insulated plastic cup with a foggy lid and a slightly bent straw. 

“Can you-” Jaemin passes him the cup so he can squeeze the tea jug back into the fridge, and Donghyuck accepts it wordlessly. Donghyuck takes a sip before screwing the lid on, passing it back to Jaemin once the fridge door seals shut.

“I thought you were okay,” Jaemin teases.

“Quality check,” Donghyuck says, licking the sticky sweetness off his lip.

“Ah, smart.” Jaemin takes a long drink, then bends down to set his cup on the floor. “Check again?” 

Donghyuck eyes the cup on the floor, then Jaemin’s face, stretching into a cheeky grin. He answers the question with a kiss, pulling Jaemin into his arms and tasting the sweetness on his tongue.

“Good?” Jaemin asks when he pulls back.

“Yeah,” Donghyuck breathes. “Good.”

There’s a moment of silence between them, Jaemin content in Donghyuck’s arms as Donghyuck searches his face. There’s a tickle of nerves in the pit of Donghyuck’s stomach, but Jaemin’s eyes shine on him like stars in the night, and mostly Donghyuck just feels  _ calm _ , safe. “Can I tell you something?”

Jaemin nods. 

Donghyuck takes a breath. “I think I’m falling in love with you.”

Jaemin goes perfectly still, like for a second, he isn’t even breathing. Then his face splits into a smile that makes Donghyuck feel like he’s standing in direct sunlight, warm all the way down to his bones. “Yeah?” Jaemin whispers.

“Yeah. Is that okay?”

Jaemin closes his eyes and laughs like he’s utterly weightless. “Well, since I’m in love with you, I think it’s more than okay.”

“Oh.” Donghyuck finds himself smiling, feeling like Jaemin’s weightlessness has seeped through into him as well.

“You didn’t know?” Jaemin asks, eyes on Donghyuck again now like he doesn’t ever want to look away.

Donghyuck considers. All the long nights together, kisses getting slower and sweeter, Jaemin making room for him in his life like it was as easy as breathing. All the times he’d looked at Donghyuck with something unreadable in his eyes, something Donghyuck didn’t recognize because he’d never seen it quite like that before. 

“I don’t know,” Donghyuck admits. “I guess I didn’t know it could feel like this. I thought it was all burning red, almost too much to bear, eating you alive so you knew it was real. But this... wasn’t that, isn’t that. It guess i was so easy to fall for you, I didn’t even really realize I was doing it.”

“You’re gonna make me swoon,” Jaemin sighs.

Donghyuck shoves his shoulder with a laugh. “Shut up. I really didn’t know it could be like this. Fun, happy, whatever. Like having a friend. I thought it had to hurt to be real, but it’s just… it’s just nice to have a friend. To be with you and be happy.”

“Oh,” Jaemin says softly. “You’re gonna make me swoon for real now.”

“I’ve got you, if you do,” Donghyuck jokes lightly.

The look on Jaemin’s face turns exasperated and impossibly fond. “So what made you realize?”

Donghyuck purses his lips. “I think I knew for a while, really, but I never thought about it enough to pin it down until Chenle told me he thought you and I were dating. At first I was like  _ obviously  _ we aren’t, but then I realized that we kind of are. And even if we weren’t, I  _ wanted  _ us to be.”

“Because you like me,” Jaemin says, smiling.

“Don’t make me take it back,” Donghyuck says.

Jaemin traces an x over his heart. “I would never dream of it. Wouldn’t want to talk the man I’m in love with out of being my boyfriend for real now, would I?”

“No, I don’t think that would be recommended,” Donghyuck says. He feels impossibly light as he looks at the smile on Jaemin’s face and knows it’s mean just for him. Knows exactly what it  _ means  _ for him.

“So do you want to be my boyfriend, Donghyuck?” Jaemin asks.

Donghyuck laughs. “Yeah, I thought I made that pretty clear.”

Jaemin smiles. “Just had to make sure. Communication is important and all that.”

“Right,” Donghyuck nods. “We’ve gotta work on that, don’t we.”

Jaemin hums. “I’ve got a good feeling about it. I spent a lot of time not telling you how I felt because I didn’t want to scare you off or push you into anything when you weren’t ready, but if you’re ready now, it’s gonna be pretty hard to shut me up.”

“I don’t have any problem with that,” Donghyuck laughs, then settles. He presses a quick kiss to Jaemin’s cheek and says, “Thank you- for waiting. And for everything. I really needed that. You really helped me. I’m really grateful.”

Jaemin’s face turns a bit more serious. “I’m pretty sure I’ve told you before, but I really didn’t mind. I wanted this too. Just as much as you.”

“Still,” Donghyuck says, shifting his hold around Jaemin so he can look right at him, head on, face to face. “You’ve been kind to me. More than I deserved when I barreled into the bar and into your life like a fucking runaway train or something. I guess I’m just really glad you took pity on a hot stranger and took me home with you. And then kept doing it.”

“Trust me,” Jaemin says, “it wasn’t pity.” He furrows his brows. “And you weren’t a stranger.”

Donghyuck stares at him. “What?”

“Like two years ago- we met on your last night at the bar,” Jaemin says. “You were nervous drinking and I was just bar-backing then, and you were nice even though you were drunk, so we talked for like an hour and then I called you a cab home because you couldn’t even walk in a straight line. I didn’t really think I would ever see you again until you showed up at the bar again in January. I wasn’t totally sure it was you until you waved me over and started talking and told me your name and everything, so I knew. I kind of couldn’t believe it.”

Donghyuck stares at him. “Are you serious? Jaemin, I don’t remember that night at  _ all _ .”

Jaemin stares back at him.

“Are you telling me I’ve drunk babbled my life story to you  _ three  _ seperate times? Oh my god, that’s so fucking embarrassing. I’m sorry.”

“Hey,” Jaemin laughs, “it was a good catalyst for everything. And if it was a turn off, we wouldn’t be here right now,” Jaemin assures him. “But you really don’t remember?”

Donghyuck shakes his head, then his eyes widen as he thinks back. “Wait, I totally fucking remember thinking you seemed familiar somehow the first night we slept together, but I thought my brain was just screwy ‘cause we’d just had sex.” He leans forward and knocks his forehead lightly against Jaemin’s. “Wow,” he mutters.

“Wow,” Jaemin echoes.

“I think I need to sit down,” Donghyuck laughs. He pulls away from Jaemin so he can throw himself down onto the bed.

Jaemin crawls onto the mattress after him. “Need some time to think about the complexities of the universe? About the odds of all this? You look like you’re thinking hard.” Jaemin says when he’s met with the concentrated look on Donghyuck’s face. 

Donghyuck shakes his head, slow smile tugging at his lips. “I’m just thinking about my boyfriend, actually. I just really want to kiss him now.”

“Well, you should,” Jaemin says with a smile.

Donghyuck doesn’t need any more convincing. 

He kisses Jaemin, and he’s happy. 

  
  


( October. 

Donghyuck twists his key in the lock of Jaemin’s apartment door, slides off his shoes and places them next to Jaemin’s, against the wall. He walks in to find Jaemin reading on the bed, pillow behind his back and knees drawn up to his chest. Jaemin looks up to him and smiles. 

“You’re home early,” he says.

Donghyuck shrugs, crossing the floor and tossing his coat onto the stool by the foot of the bed. He clambers onto the mattress to join Jaemin, leaning into him and settling against his side when Jaemin moves to wrap an arm around him. “I missed you.”

He can’t see it, but he knows Jaemin is smiling, because he can feel it in the kiss Jaemin presses to his temple. 

“They got married today,” Donghyuck says after a pause. There isn’t any bitterness in his voice as he delivers the news.

“Are you okay?” Jaemin asks. 

Donghyuck nods. “Yeah, I am.” He twists, lifting his head from Jaemin’s shoulder to look up at him. Jaemin’s smiling softly at him, just like Donghyuck knew he was. He leans up to press a kiss to Jaemin’s jaw before curling back into his side. “I hope they figure out how to be happy together. And redistribute all that wealth.” He laughs lightly, reaching for Jaemin’s hand and playing with his fingers. 

Mark and Jeno are married now. It was a private ceremony, but there were cameras on them when they walked out together afterwards, rings on their entwined fingers. Donghyuck had seen the pictures and worried he’d feel upset, resentful, but he hadn’t felt much of anything, really. He’d known he was on the way home to Jaemin, so it hadn’t mattered to him much more than any other piece of news. 

It’s been almost a year, and he really is okay now.

“Hey,” he says softly.

Jaemin hums, “Hm?”

“I love you.”

Jaemin links their fingers and presses another kiss into the side of Donghyuck’s head. “I love you too.”

Donghyuck smiles. He lets his eyes fall shut, exhaling as Jaemin goes back to reading his book, toying absently with Donghyuck’s fingers and brushing his knuckles lightly against Donghyuck’s stomach. 

This is enough. 

This is what Donghyuck wants, and it’s all that he needs.

This is more than enough. )

**Author's Note:**

> for anyone who doesnt listen to Way too much taylor swift (im kidding that's impossible) and didn't pick up on the hints i peppered thru this: the fic was first inspired by illicit affairs before morphing into more of an invisible string and delicate and call it what you want and daylight kind of show bc im a SAP but yeah! fun facts!
> 
> ALSO after discovering that nahyuck is the least written dream 00 pairing i have made it my mission to write them more so nahyuck nation i hope u enjoyed this~~ i will (hopefully) be returning to u soon!!!


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